Berghia Nudibranchs Ultimate Aiptasia Killer??

[bbprinting]

Ok so just did a group buy on these cool little creatures so I thought I would kind of keep a thread about their activity. Got the shipment in on Tuesday from Reeftown and they came in the jar below completely full with seawater. When I first looked in the jar it looked like nothing was in it because they were all attached the lid. Floated them for about 6 hours (I was at work) then slowly did a water change of about 50% of the jar to slowly acclimate them to my water. Then I put the opened jar on it side in the tank to let them crawl out on their own, they really stick to the sides and you have to be really careful not to damage them by forcing them out. I got about 20 total so I decide to set up a 10 gallon tank just for them and plumbed it into my sump with the other tank I have setup in the garage. I put in a few rocks that have about 20 or more Aiptasia on them, I have really been poking and proding the aiptasia for the last week to get them to really propagate so I am sure I will keep plenty of food available for them to eat and breed.

 

[simontan]

So you're not putting any directly into your main tank? I don't have much aiptasia but a lot of majanos in hard to reach places and it just wouldn't be doable in my case to pull out infested rocks one at a time to be treated. Do they seem to work any better than peppermints? Peppermints always get killed in my tank but if you had them in a small tank like you've got the nudis in, I bet they'd work pretty well since they'd have no other food to choose from. At Bills shop before, he had a tank of peppermints which would absolutely jump whenever a rock with some aiptasia would get put in.

 

[bbprinting]

No for right now I wanted to just see how they would do without any type of predators. That way I could watch daily and see exactly how damage they were doing to the Aiptasia. The main idea with these Nudibranchs is not the adult you add to take out the Aiptasia, it is their offspring that will do the most damage because they attack it as a large group. So by getting multiple mature adults you assure many eggs will be laid. So yes in my display tank I am just not sure if the adults or the eggs would survive my wrasse. The idea is to adult the nudibranchs at night when your tank is asleep and give them time to hid themselves and to lay the eggs out of site of any predators. I also have another tank with just 4 peppermint shrimp in it that do an ok job with clearing the Aiptasia, but peppermint shrimp have no chance in my display tank of not being killed. So hopefully if I get enough offspring of the Nudibranchs I will then add them at night to my DT and see how they do in there. The other problem is once all the Aiptasia is gone the nudibranchs will all die of starvation, so in the 10 gallon I will keep a constant supply so that I always have more to add to my DT. This is the game plan but what will really happen who knows.

 

[Wes]

they are quick to attack them, thats for sure...i have them separated as well and am placing rocks in with them at the moment. here is one going after a pretty big apt.

 

[bbprinting]

I have not seen mine attack yet but I already have eggs after the first night.

 

[Shmoopy]

Ill take several after you get them to hatch! Good luck

 

[mukymuk]

Some of my berghia experience, FWIW:

Berghia won't attack majanos (so I was informed by a commercial breeder). Peppermints in a separate tank that doesn't have another food source is the best way to use peppermints--or any aptasia eater for that matter. Most animals that feed on aptasia don't prefer it to other sources of food.

Berghia are extremely vulnerable to predation. Peppermints, for example, will rip them to shreds. Many other reef tank critters won't hesitate to eat them. Your success using Berghia is a function predation, population, and food availability. Predation is the most significant issue in our tanks, IME.

Once you reach a certain population of aptasia vs. tank area, your berghia will die--unfortunately this is not zero aiptasia. You'll likely always be in the market for berghia unless you have a dedicated berghia breeding system separate from your tank.

The will lay a lot of eggs. In my particular experience I had terrible trouble with microbial infections of the eggs. Zero survival. The next time I try I a going to use filtered seawater--not a salt mix and not water from my tanks.

Once you put your berghia in your tank, you're pretty much guaranteed (IME) to never see them again. This makes it real hard to measure success until several months later.

The best way I've found to feed your berghia is to put them in a small container that is protected against temperature and salinity shifts. Put one small aptasia in there until it's gone (large aptasia can actually kill berghia). You don't want to put too many aptasia in at once as they can foul the water pretty quickly as they die slowly from being eaten. You want a small container with no rocks so you can find the berghia and collect the eggs. If you have rock in there, you'll have a really hard time seeing them--much less collecting them. They are super fragile.

Good luck!

 

[bbprinting]

The 10 gallon I have them in is plumbed together with multiple other tanks and a large sump so I don't have to worry about swaying parameters so hopefully that will not be an issue

I have twenty in there with only 2 rocks and I can't see any of them but I don't want to lift the rocks to see where they are

What type of setup did you have them in?

 

[mukymuk]

A small covered bowl floating in a temperature controlled tank. I did ~25% water exchanges with tank water twice per day. Looking back, I should have filtered the water.

 

[bbprinting]

So I have begun to worry because I can't seem to find any of them anywhere now even when I turn the rocks over, but I have noticed that alot of the small Aiptasia are now gone so I am hoping they are all just living deep in all of the porous rock. Then when I got home today I finally saw one crawling around on top and then slowly disappeared into one of the holes. So hope has returned and I don't feel like I just lit a bunch of money on fire, lol.

 

[Wes]

ur not alone, i havnt seen one in days

 

[Sherman]

Any updates on this topic since there has been a couple group buys lately for these little guys....