Aiptasia - Glass Anemone invasion. Suggestions?

[mogulski]

Long time reefkeeper, but have been out of the hobby for a long time.
I have 90G display that hasn't been maintained in a very long while. Within the next week I'll in the process of moving it to another location in my house.

Bad news is that this thing is absolutely riddled with Aiptasia.

Good news is that there's only a false perc clown in there so I really wont be harming any livestock in whatever I do.

Rather than chemical treating, should I take the LR out and give it a fresh water bath or let it dry out all together? The LR is beautiful as it has been established for over 10 yrs and has some wonderful colors So I would like to save it

Thanks for your suggestions. Been a long time since I have thought or talked about aquariums.

[Phildirt]

Peppermint shrimp. The one I had cleared the tank.

[mogulski]

I feel like I would need an army of peppermint shrimp to clean this mess

[Phildirt]

You'd be surprised what work one can do. Just make sure you don't have any aiptasia in your overflows before you set the tank back up.

[phillrodrigo]

Berghia nudibranch and kalk paste. The berghia will take most of them out. The issue with them is they only eat aptasia. They seem not to be to intelligent and they die before every single one is gone. So kalk paste will help get the others

[Reef Frog]

Not sure how long you would need to soak in freshwater to kill them all. Drying for an extended time might kill them all but not sure what it would do the coralline. Bleaching the LR is a sure thing but understand why you don't want to do that.

Maybe kill as many as you can with kalk or AptasiaX or similar, do a quick freshwater soak & dry. If any reappear it should be easy to control them with a bio control like shrimp or the right fish, or zap them individually as they appear. Good luck.

[asylumdown]

What's your long term goal? If you're gearing up to really get back in to reefing and you want to solve this problem first, I'd recommend a total re-set. Temporarily re-home the clown, drain the tank, bleach the rocks, properly clean and dry all equipment, hoses, etc and start over with a fresh cycle. If you're considering drying the rocks it sounds like you're willing to nuke whatever else is on them anyway.

I have done battle with those monsters for my entire reefing career. If I had a time machine I'd go back to the day I put sand from a friend's aiptasia infested refugium in my new 275 gallon tank to "seed" it and slap myself silly. I've been able to beat them back in this system twice now with berghia, but they inevitably miss one microscopic pedal laceration somewhere in the tank before they all starve to death. A year later you're right back where you started.

It sounds like you have the perfect opportunity to eliminate them from the system entirely, and like ich, with proper protocols they can easily be kept out.

Go big or go home, as they say.

ETA: Try not to buy in to the sunk cost fallacy. They have beautiful colors and have been established for 10 years, yes. That doesn't mean they won't again, or the way they'll look 2 years from now won't be just as nice - only without two years of stress, frustration, effort, and money invested in to trying to keep the aiptasia under control.

[SnoopyDaPimp]

I used nudibranch for the majority and the finished the stragglers with boiling water. Then when you are done with them you can give them to fellow reefers. That is what I did but you have to watch them since they die quickly when they run out or can't find new food.

[zachfishman]

You'd be surprised what work one can do. Just make sure you don't have any aiptasia in your overflows before you set the tank back up.

+1 I always end up with a peppermint shrimp per tank. Those Aiptasia are tough to get rid of.

[mogulski]

What's your long term goal? If you're gearing up to really get back in to reefing and you want to solve this problem first, I'd recommend a total re-set. Temporarily re-home the clown, drain the tank, bleach the rocks, properly clean and dry all equipment, hoses, etc and start over with a fresh cycle. If you're considering drying the rocks it sounds like you're willing to nuke whatever else is on them anyway.

I have done battle with those monsters for my entire reefing career. If I had a time machine I'd go back to the day I put sand from a friend's aiptasia infested refugium in my new 275 gallon tank to "seed" it and slap myself silly. I've been able to beat them back in this system twice now with berghia, but they inevitably miss one microscopic pedal laceration somewhere in the tank before they all starve to death. A year later you're right back where you started.

It sounds like you have the perfect opportunity to eliminate them from the system entirely, and like ich, with proper protocols they can easily be kept out.

Go big or go home, as they say.

ETA: Try not to buy in to the sunk cost fallacy. They have beautiful colors and have been established for 10 years, yes. That doesn't mean they won't again, or the way they'll look 2 years from now won't be just as nice - only without two years of stress, frustration, effort, and money invested in to trying to keep the aiptasia under control.

Good question. Should of given more of a background. I no longer have the time to get back into reefkeeping. I sold off all my lifestock two years ago and since then the tank has just been on autopiliot, or should i say auto top off from an RO/DI.
What's happening is that we're having another baby and we need the room that it was once in, which was my home office. I don't want to get out of the hobby all together as I do enjoy it, so I'm looking to keep it simple with a FOWLR tank.

I have a lifereef Ca reactor w/ MAG3 pump and a 5lb CO2 tank with regulator for sale too that I wont be using with a FOWLR tank.

If I was just to remove the LR and either sit in FW or Dry out, how long ya reckon before the aitasia would die off?

[asylumdown]

Aiptasia is resilient stuff. I put one in a cup of freshwater for a week once to see what would happen. It got all melty and looked gross, but it's foot never let go of the side of the cup. When I replaced it with salt water a week later, several little clones grew out of what was left. I'm sure if you leave it long enough they'll all die, but if you want to guarantee they're dead, you'll need to dry the rocks completely. They can't survive being dried out, but they need to be 100% dry.

I live in a place with really low ambient humidity, and in the sun it takes a couple of days for a large rock to dry out completely if I turn it over a couple of times. If you live somewhere humid it will probably take longer.

But if it's going to be fish only, why bother? They can be an incredible clean up crew, and if you ever pick up one of the not reef safe butterflies that like to nibble on them you'll have something for them to munch on between feedings. Heck, it might be worth it to pick up a handful of berghia nudis from salty underground or something and see what happens. Worst case scenario you're out a few bucks, best case scenario you'll have $1000-1500 worth of nudibranchs to sell in 5 months.

[lionfish300]

I would get a file fish or copper bandit butterfly fish, these two took care of my aiptasia for me

[Typography]

A friend bought a file fish and got rid of all of them guys

[PhaneSoul]

+1 use aiptasia as a cuc or live food. No sense in killing something that can benefit others.

[Crusinjimbo]

Had them in droves until I added six Berghias. I continued the battle with Aptasia X on the larger ones. Three months later and not a one remained. It has been almost a year and still none, nada, Aptasia or Berghia. I got my berghia online.