ejaustin Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Hi, guys, As I've been building up my tank again, I got some aiptasia. (I'm pretty sure it rode in on a "pod mat" I got from ipsf.com.) Today we followed the instructions at garf.com It seems to have worked wonderfully. It's the wrong season to get pickling lime at the store, so I went over to Aqua Dome and bought calcium hydroxide for use in kalkwasser and then followed the directions from garf. (My daughter actually did it.) We had 2 aiptasia that I could see and a couple more my daughter saw that I never did. She "fed" each of them and they all look nuked and everything near them looks just fine. We'll continue to keep an eye out for these guys, but I wanted to share my experience, just for the record. (I generally feel like I have so little to offer here.) ej Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjohn Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 I still prefer peppermint shrimp. The "chemical" approach can kill things accidently and it's hard to get to the ones you can't see. I have had very good success with the shrimp. If I get tired of them, I just neglect to feed my Niger trigger for a few days and he cleans them up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tropheusmaster Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 i found about 8 on 1 rock in my tank today and was wondering what to do about them Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tropheusmaster Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 how fast will the peppermint shrimp work Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejaustin Posted March 30, 2009 Author Share Posted March 30, 2009 I tried peppermint shrimp first. Added 3 of them. There was no change in the aiptasia I could see and after 2 days, I never saw any of the shrimp again. (No bodies either.) Puzzling since the only other inhabitants of the tank are snail and crabs (nassarius and micro hermits). I could see the hermits getting them if they were sick or dead, but I can't imagine a hermit killing a healthy shrimp many times its size. The calcium hydroxide was my 2nd choice and seems to have done the job for me. I'd try peppermints as a first option again, but this time I seemed to need an alternative, and garf seems to be a fairly reliable source of information. (If my tank were big enough, I'd have gone with the copperband butterflies. I think they are cool looking fish anyway.) ej Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rjohn Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Be sure to get peppermints. there is another shrimp (camel I think) that looks almost exactly like peppermint but they have no interest in eating aiptasia what so ever. I had a hundred aiptasia this last time that I could see and it took three shrimp took about 2 weeks to clean it up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefman Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 I had no luck with Peppermints either, but my Copperband Butterfly has worked great. It's my second one, and they are delicate and hard to keep, but for Aptasia they work great. BTW, does the Garf stuff work on Paly's? I know it sound horrible, but I've got blue Paly's in my tank that have really become a nuisance. I've tried Joe's Juice and the other stuff (Blue something?), and they both knock them back for a while, but the little buggers always recover, even with repeated doses. Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefman Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 (edited) BTW, the Copperband is also one of my favorite fish. She is a real sweetheart and eats out of my hand. Stephen Edited March 30, 2009 by reefman Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truck0000 Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 I had aptasia real bad about 1 year and half ago. Didnt really know what they were till it was way to late, nothing worked becuase there were so many 100++. They killed off all my zoos and plays. I got fustrated and negelected my tank. Cyano over ran it. So i clean the cyano off and restart the sytem after a couple of months and bang all the aptasia was dead because of the cyano. Sheer fustration cured my aptasia problem. Although the bubble algea came back. That is still an ongoing fight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaceyJ Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 I am actually looking for a copper band, and some peppermint shrimp. I can see for sure 6 aptasia. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GKarshens Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 I have to say something about Copper Bands. They are one fish we should leave in the ocean. Some people have success with them like Stephen and get one to eat.(not trying to slam you here Stephan, I am happy you got lucky on your second try.) However much more often it is the opposite. People will go through several of them and watch them die. And that is not even counting the ones that die in shipping or at the store. Their mortality rate is very high. I urge anyone that is thinking about one of these to do some research on it before making a decision. I had good success with Peppermint shrimp. I had quite a bit of the buggers at one time and added 5 shrimp. 2 days later I had no more aiptasia. Majanos? Now that's a different story! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caferacermike Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 I found a happy mix between using BOTH peppermint shrimp and Kalk paste to get rid of an almost overnight outbreak of aptasia. I'd say I went from having about 4 to about 200 in about 2 weeks at one point. I first used the Kalk to knock em back. It worked great. However after about 3 weeks I began to see little ones popping up again. Not sure if they were left overs or so small I couldn't see them the first time. So I added 12 peppermint shrimp to my 75g. I did not see them doing much work after about 10 days. Knowing that they tend not to eat the full sized adults, I nuked em all back with the Kalk. By morning I found the peppermint shrimp all over the melting aptasia. Within a couple of days it was all cleared up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
prof Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 I second Mike's response. Using kalk is great. It only hurts what you put it on and it raises your calcium levels. Peppermints are not likely to touch the larger anemones. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ejaustin Posted March 30, 2009 Author Share Posted March 30, 2009 For people who want to try peppermints, how can they make sure they get the right shrimp? I bought mine at Aquatek and explained that I had a couple aiptasia to get rid of. Aquatek has a good reputation and knowledgeable staff, so I assume I got actual peppermint shrimps. But is there a good way to tell them apart from camel shrimp (or any other shrimp that may look similar) so we can double-check the ones we're given? ej Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Beretta Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 I've had luck with peppermint shrimp. They cleared out the aptasia in a couple of days. I tried Joe's Juice to no avail, but surprisingly, lemon juice worked quite well too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GKarshens Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 Camels have a hump on their back and Peppermints don't. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
caferacermike Posted March 30, 2009 Share Posted March 30, 2009 If i recall correctly, Peps are also called "veined shrimp". This is due to the red "veins" lined all over their bodies. There are several similar looking shrimp and the most definitely not a pep has distinct white lines all over the body. The body should be pale to pink and the red lines should be well developed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
reefman Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Hey Gabriel. I didn't realize Copperbands had such a high mortality rate. I knew they were delicate, but not to the extreme you described. I guess the fact that I got this one geeting from my hand is probably lucky, cause if left to its own the other fish (Tangs, Wrasses, and others) would out compete him for the food. Stephen Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GKarshens Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Most people don't. That is why I say something about it when the topic arises. That is awesome that your's eats out of your hand. My old Orange Shoulder Tang did that. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Truckin Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 I have had good results using Aptasia X. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimD Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 You'll have much better luck with Peppermint shrimp if you 'train' them,. By that I mean, put them in a seperate tank with a rock that has Aiptasia and dont feed the tank so the Aips are the shrimps only food source,.. Once you get them to eat the things, you'll stand a much better chance of them eating Aiptasia in the main tank, this has worked perfectly for me in the past. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisfowler99 Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 You'll have much better luck with Peppermint shrimp if you 'train' them,. By that I mean, put them in a seperate tank with a rock that has Aiptasia and dont feed the tank so the Aips are the shrimps only food source,.. Once you get them to eat the things, you'll stand a much better chance of them eating Aiptasia in the main tank, this has worked perfectly for me in the past. I just picked some up and their in my main tank now. We'll see how that goes. I have no fish yet, so I'm not feeding the tank. Hoping they're going to find it. I'll have problems if I have to "train" them...because the only rock with visible aiptasia on it at the moment is too large for any tank other than the main one. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ReeferMadness Posted April 3, 2009 Share Posted April 3, 2009 Two days ago I had a lil' aiptasia genocide in my tank using Blue Vet Aiptasia Control, worked well with no adverse effects. Hope the Pep. works out for ya. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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