Need help with Aptasia in my Mantis tank

[rhiggsbear]

Well, here a good one. I bought some of that cheap Caribbean live rock that was offered here on RC a while back for my Mantis tank. Wee, guess what. It has sprouted Aptasia.

Granted, I can nuke them which works some of the time. Is there anything that will survive with my 2" Mantis long enough to eat this stuff? Think a 2" peppermint shrimp would last?

Keep in mind; it is a 10 gal tank.

Thanks for any and all suggestions.


BobH

[Optyma]

Well... I have a ten gallon with a peppermint shrimp and a yellow watchman goby. They share it with a 2" smasher, and so far, the fish and the shrimp are still alive. All mine does is kill Nassarius snails and further his burrow digging. but ive only had him for like 5 days. And the peppemint shrimp was in there first, that might be why he is still alive.

Brian

[Gus]

Blow these guys up with a syringe filled with boiling water (just don't burn yourself mate!) or use a super saturated solution of calcium hydroxide (2 grams in 100 millilitres, i'm not sure what the imperial coversion for this is as I live in Australia and use metric units). If using the calc solution the twirl the syringe a bit so the solution dosen't clog the needle. The trouble with either of these is that your anemones have to be accessable to poke with what ever method you use to perfom this opperation.

The other thing to do is get a copperband butterfly, Chelmon rostratus , but only to eat the anemones. He'll eat any other little corals as well, given the chance (put him in a tank with the problem rock). They're pretty resilent and swim in the open so your mantis shouldn't bother it too much.

Best of Luck!
Gus.

[dc]

I would not go with a CBB, it may take longer than you think for him to get going. Just keep kalking. I usually turn off my water flow and make a thick paste, inject with a marinater syringe. It usually gets kind of hard and stays there for awhile.

[Gus]

On reflection, in a 10 gal tank and CBB mightn't be a good idea (good thinking dc) and she's is most definitly right about them taking a while to get going (that's why I recommended it second)
stick with dc, she sounds like a veteran.

Gus