Anyone have a good solution on how to get rid of Aptasia? I'm thinking of getting a Copperband but I am very concern about my feather dusters and RBTA. Well I'm more concern about the feather duster since the RBTA is hosting a pair of clowns. I tried Peppermint shrimps but I think my pair of Banded coral shrimps ate them all. I tried Joe's juice (work ok, but have to be careful around some corals) but I don't think it's the permanent solution to the problem.

When I first used Joe's Juice, I had a control problem and the stuff would go over everything including yellow polyps and zoas. Surprisingly, those were not affected at all even after swallowing some of the Joe's Juice. I can't guarantee results like that for everyone, but it's still the best solution for larger polyps.

Well.....if it were me. I would remove the coral banded shrimp and put in peppermint shrimp.

peppermint shrimp are a great natural way to rid of them, although not all of them will eat those petsy things, some peppermint shrimp will also bother your anemone when you add food, mine actually tore some tenticles of the anemone. Not trying to pee in your cherios, just lettin you know some other effects of that. I personally havnt tried joes juice yet but do need to get some for a new frag I got has 1 of those buggers on it. I'ld say try the joes juice but have a steady hand and you shouldnt have any problems :)

I have had limited success with the joes juice. It kills them (or so it seems), but then like 2 or 3 weeks later, Im infested again. I am going to buy a bunch of peppermints and feed lightly for a while. I think it just tankes time.

funny you should post this..... eradicated all my aptasia in one swoop today..

i had about 20,

tried the pepper mint shrimp- did not work, you have to make sure you buy a certain species...

i tried 3 different copperbands only 1 actually had a taste for them , however they all had a taste for my feather dusters and other polyps -they had to go

So the best thing i find that has no effect on my reef tank is to mix kalkwasser with boiling water into a thick paste. Then draw it into a syringe with a 21 or higher gauge needle (the thinner the better) and start poking away into the stem of the buggers and inserting the kalk,,, instant death.
if they're too small to have a visable stem just place some kalk mixture at their mouth, the mixture is very sticky and will bind to thier tenticles and they will start to die this way also...
if you cant get hold of needles and syringes let me know...i have a couple hanging around the house... ( kickback of being a doctor) lol....

hope that helps

Thanks guys for the input.

Jeremy how is that RBTA doing?

Special thanks to Doc Slayer. I took your advice and mixed the cocktail for all the Aptasia that I HAD in my tank. They are gone but I'm sure they will be back. One thing I should mention about the cocktail as well as Joe's Juice. One should not let the mixture get on corals since you can easily damage them.

I got a feeling that this cocktail have similar ingredient as Joe's juice but much much cheaper. I like the idea of mixing it your own since you can determine the potent and the consistancy of the mixture.

Thanks

Rit:

RBTA doing great. I'll send you some pics (like I said I would do when I was there, but have put off because I am lazy). How is the blue tip, while we're talking?

no probs...

glad to help..

Jeremy

The staghorn is growing and doing great. I got the larger piece under the 1000W. I'm getting a real deep blue at the tip. I'm going to add some actinic lights and increase water flow again to get more color out of it.

I have had great success with using just boiling ro water.
Boil it in a stainless steel pan, carry the pan to the tank, draw the water into the suringe and squirt it onto the aptaisia.

Hmmmm, Mike, I'll give it a try. Slayers formula works really well. Actually it works much better than Joe's juice and cost much much less but it's hard on the hard corals as well as ricordeas.

I have used Doc. Slayers mix a number of times and it works great. Got it from my son in North Carolina who is also a Doc.. It seems to be the only thing that consistently works and the price is right.

GEM

i used pikling lime the same way. this works better than joes juice. they usually melt away and dont return. ive also used the boiling water and ive used lemon juice in small doses. lemon juice worked pretty well if you could inject them. most of them were to small and i dont want to wait on them to grow.

ive been lucky woth the pepperments. god thing there pretty cheap because i loose 2 a month easy. just keep throwing them in. kinda like the snails being foor for my crabs.

Dorian, how are those corals doing? Did you ever get your larger tank going? The 4 mushrooms that you traded with me are doing great. Can't wait to see them split.

Thanks guys for all the inputs. All of them are usefull. I'll reintroduce the peppermint shrimp back in the tank again also.

I went and bought a copperband butterfly a few days ago. I must got a bad one because he wouldn't touch any Aptesia but eat all the sfuff that I don't want him to touch!!! lol All of my mysis shrimps, amphipods and mini feather dusters are gone. Luckily I placed him in my refugium. He going back to the fish store.

good luck with the aptaisia.


:::all the corals are growing well except the green acro. it didnt make past aclimation. the new tank is sitting in the floor with the new halides. i decided to go with 3 icecap 250 watt halides and try to run 440 watt vho. i may melt some softies. im building the stand and canopy and the skimmer is on its way. just a few more things (pumps and plumbing) and ill be ready to go. maybe a few weeks. both my other tanks are maxed out. cant fit anything in the. i didnt really have room for what i got from you but couldnt pass up those great frags,thanks again.