Need some encouragement

[mybug]

I could use a little encouragement. Not that I'm going to throw in the towel, but wow, feeling kind of low.

Why ? dreaded aipasia.

Pretty much overnight have hundreds if not thousands of little tiny aiptasia. They are about the size of the sharpened end of a pencil. Far to many to inject.

The rock they are on is low in my tank and large so removing it would be a pain. And I've got lots of rock in the tank and of course concerned that before I know it will be on all my rock. Approximate 75lbs of live rock.

Course I've been reading about all the known approaches. I've got peppermints in the tank now but they are so shy I never find them out and about. My royal gramma appears to have them afraid to even scour about.

Was reading tonight in the aipasia control methods doc that some have suggested you can spray rather than inject when working with hydrogen peroxide. Seems kind of scary but they are so small I certainly cannot inject.

Gosh what a bummer.

I've only discovered these about two days ago. How fast will they grow ? Will they balloon to the size of a small anemome in days or ..

I've read so much on this forum and others that my head is spinning. Did I read somewhere that they can be starved out or controlled somewhat by taking extreme care of water and feeding ?

Is an aiptasia breakout a sign of bad tank care or am I just a victim ?

Tank is a little over a year old and ..

SG 1.024
PH is at 8.2 most often
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Calcium 380

Testing phosphate as I write this

Using RO/DI
PWC every week
Dosing Seachem advantage calcium and Seachem Reef Builder

[SeanySean]

Victim, The best thing I know of for this problem is a nudibranch, they only feed on this - if you di get one, be kind enough to either pull the things apart to create more aiptasia.....!!!! or pass the cool guy on..

[dead beat reef]

overnight bad things happen. it might take a few mos. for the
peppermints to show head way. they might be at work at night.
1 or 2 peppermints will take longer than 5 or 6 peppermints.
give it time. dont go all out for a one day cure it dont work that
way. how about a few pics. like to see your tank. I like your
water readings. post up again.

[bsaastad]

The peppermints can be kind of hit or miss, but on the other hand they are the only thing I've found to control aiptasia (my tank's too small to house a foxface, plus I don't want one :)) IMHO, injecting them is just an exercise in frustration. They just don't cooperate and insist on growing in inaccesible locations.

I added several in the hope that at least one would have a taste. I rarely see them - they usually hang out inside the rock work - but they do the job. Must be out in the wee hours.

And yes, they may take some time before you notice anything. Last time I did this I added three in my 52 gal, no change at all for a couple of weeks, then one morning I couldn't find a single aiptasia!

You'll never get rid of all of them. You may never see any, but if anything happens to the peps you'll most likely start seeing them come back in time, but that's ok. Remember that you're really trying to control them - I don't know if it's even possible to completely rid yourself of them once they get a foot hold, but they can be controlled with the right predators.

[mybug]

Yes, I suppose some of my feeling low is the realization that I missed it when I put the rock in. I didn't check the rock out carefully enough, but, that is over and done with.

Live and learn,

This is a 55G and I hope to upgrade to much larger tank one day. I suppose I could yank a rock or two then if I chose to as I'll undoubtedly be adding rock at that time also.

I don't have a great camera and I'm just now purchasing T5 lamps to begin to go toward a reef so presently taking pics of my tank under NO lamps is pretty much impossible. With the new lamps I'm hoping I can take pics as there will be plenty of light.

I'll take some at some point and post them.

[SeanySean]

You may not have even noticed it, they can retract right into holes - not your faukt these things happen, the only possible way you could have know is if you had a QT tank and inspected the rock for a couple of days!!!

[Pandora]

Don't feel bad, mybug. It happens to the best of us, even the cleanest, most beautiful tanks, occasionally you will see one of the dreaded things sprout its ugly head. The key is to nip it in the bud when you only see one or two, but that is understandably hard to do also, and squish one the wrong way, and it will spread a hundred little babies to every inaccessible nook & cranny in your rock.

Me, I'm into injecting kalk. No question you miss about half the time, but with the medium sized ones, you can usually get to them or their little hiding holes if you are fast & persistant. Sometimes they don't die the first time from a direct exposure, but over time the kalk in the hole wears them down and they start to look decrepid, and then whither away. I know that with some of this rock where you can hardly count the number of small aiptasia, this just isn't an option. I'm wondering if you could take the more heavily infested pc's out of the tank for individual treatment, or is your rockwork too tight?

[piti-u]

I had an outbreak of Aiptasia and what I did was take a turkey baster and modified it a little for blasting them with boiling water. I had an empty super glue bottle(or anything with a long tip like that) and glued it onto the tip of the baster because I found that the baster was too large at the end. I simply warm up some water in a coffee mug until it boils, suck some into the baster, and blast the aiptasia. They to retract into their holes but they usually die before that. Then what I found is if I stop squeezing the baster, I can suck the aiptasia remnants into the baster and "spit" them out into a bucket. You'll probably never get rid of them completely but at least you can control them.