long term berghia?

[salty joe]

I asked this in reef discussion-no luck there-but thought if anyone has success with long term berghia, it'd be large tank keepers.

Has anyone managed a system with fairly stable rising and falling populations of aiptasia and berghia?

[dave.m]

I have only ever seen this work in LFSs that maintained a permanent berghia breeding tank that all their new live rock would pass through. They would sell the berghia off to customers with aptasia problems. The berghia would only last as long as the aptasia in the client's tank did. Meanwhile, new batches of live rock would have come in and the LFS's berghia brood stock would set to work again.

The only for sure method of keeping this system going full time would be to keep one tank of live rock going that would always have some aptasia in it, and a second tank with your berghia brood stock in. You'd pass one piece of aptasia-contaminated rock at a time into the berghia tank to keep them going, while transfering another live rock into the aptasia tank to become infested and keep it going.

There's a book on raising berghia (http://www.amazon.com/Breeding-Berghia-Nudibranches-best-secret/dp/1461065674) by Dene Banger you might want to look into for more information.

Dave.M

[saf1]

I asked this in reef discussion-no luck there-but thought if anyone has success with long term berghia, it'd be large tank keepers.

Has anyone managed a system with fairly stable rising and falling populations of aiptasia and berghia?

Salty - you posted this in the general on 12/31. People responded. Maybe you didn't like the replies or forgot you posted there. Mods - this should be removed and/or merged and doesn't belong in this sub forum.

[salty joe]

Thanks Dave m for that link and your experience. I'm not terribly interested in breeding them though. It makes sense to me that the bigger the system, the better the odds of maintaining aiptasia and berghia long term. Obviously, it happens in the wild-I wonder how big a system would need to be to pull it off?

saf1, maybe you should read that short post again. Then you might realize that I didn't forgot that I posted in reef discussion. You also might understand why I posted the same question to the large tank forum.

[dave.m]

The answer to your larger tank query is no, it would not make any difference. As soon as berghia find a good supply of aptasia and start chowing down on them they start laying eggs - LOTS of eggs. And if those eggs hatch and there are still lots of aptasia for the little berghia to chow down on then the little berghia will become big berghia and start laying lots more eggs. The aptasia will eventually get wiped out. The size of the tank may delay the inevitable for a time, but only for a short time.

Dave.M

[saf1]

saf1, maybe you should read that short post again. Then you might realize that I didn't forgot that I posted in reef discussion. You also might understand why I posted the same question to the large tank forum.

If anything it should be general or advanced. Probably advanced but that is just my opinion. It comes down to the food source but you do what you want.

Have a nice day.

General:
Just wondering what kind of success someone might have with surviving populations of berghia as well as aiptasia over the long haul?

Large Reef:
I asked this in reef discussion-no luck there-but thought if anyone has success with long term berghia, it'd be large tank keepers.

Has anyone managed a system with fairly stable rising and falling populations of aiptasia and berghia?