Killing Aiptasia study- Part I

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by hng

Well, I smothered some aptasia with kalk paste last night. We'll see how effective it was. In the past, it didn't work too well for me. Is the goal to make the aptasia "eat" the kalk, or should I simply "smother" them with kalk?

cover them up, Kalk is cheap, and it is good for bth the tank alk and Ca++, I don't think I would use more than 30 cc a day in a 55 gal tank. I use 60cc in 250 and have no deleterious effects om pH, Ca++, alk, or Mg++ levels, but occasionally i do have a small nitrate spike the day after killing a lot of them (20PPM via Salifert low Nitrate kit after the last large batch), just proof that I am killing them, I guess...


smother that motha'

Important that you look for straglers for a few days after tretment, otherwise they will be right back. Eradiction of an infesttion takes a dedicted few weeks of killing them everytime you see them.

Either that or a racoon butterfly, but they are hard on your corals.

When are you going to drop by for some frags?

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by fchidsey

Tom Great Thread. Very insightful, my last tank was riddled with aptasia I used joes juice with no luck i followed the direction and it did not work well for me at all. eventually we took the tank down. after about a year I am now cooking the rock in anticipation of the 150 build coming up.

I'm looking forward to the remainder of the build.

Keep the bulk of yur untreated rock in the dark, and take one out every week or so and put it in a 20 gal tank in good light and look for the pests (and kill them). This will allow you to put clean rock in a different holding pool/barrel as you eradicte the pest Anemonea. By doing one rock at a time, you can turn that rock any way needed so the anemones are facing up (for easy kalking). Take a few days to makle sure that each rock is looked over completely. Rock treated this way will keep alive many other hitchhikers (worms, copepods, some actinians, coralline, etc.) so they will be able to seed your tank when you reestablish it.

Good hunting!

[fchidsey]

tom this is still needed even though the rock has been dry for over a year?? i thought they would of died off now?

thanks fred

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by fchidsey

tom this is still needed even though the rock has been dry for over a year?? i thought they would of died off now?

thanks fred

AAHHHhh! Probably not, but it would be smart to start putting the rock in some ASW and let it start percolating, maybe throw a piece of Aiptasia-free live rock in with it to let it seed all your rock while you are preparing the system for occupancy. It is fun to watch the rock critters in a barrel with a fluorescent/T5HO/MH light some evenings, I set up a Brute barrel with a MH bulb and reflector and a skimmer on it around 1996 while I was setting up a new lagoonal tank; the barrel WAS my tank for about 6 months. Eric and I used to joke that it couldn't get much more ghetto than that.

Speaking of way--back, where is Alice these days, seems we saw a lot more of each other on the boards back then.

[jenglish]

FWIW I have used kalk paste to attack bryopsis as well. Like all algaes there are ways to get to the source that need to be addressed as well but strangely most things die when you cover them in kalk paste. After dropping a spoon and getting a noseful I know why!

[tdwyatt]

Originally Posted by jenglish

FWIW I have used kalk paste to attack bryopsis as well. Like all algaes there are ways to get to the source that need to be addressed as well but strangely most things die when you cover them in kalk paste. After dropping a spoon and getting a noseful I know why!

Ca(OH)2 is extremely caustic and corrosive (why it works), I use rubber gloves if I think there is some chance I'll get the paste on my hands. It's definitely a problem if you get it in your eyes or respiratory tract.

http://www.drugs.com/enc/calcium-hydroxide.html

[jenglish]

Originally Posted by tdwyatt

Ca(OH)2 is estremely custic and corrosive, i use rubber glovees if I think there is some chance I'll get it on my hands.

http://www.drugs.com/enc/calcium-hydroxide.html

I know, I just file that under the same file as test-driving a Goldwing w/o a helmut, wondering what muriatic acid "smells" like and making jokes to my wife about how that skirt looked better on her sister. Sometimes I do things despite knowing how stupid they are

[fchidsey]

Thanks for the insight, I'll be tagging along for the remainder.

[Cuttlefish]

I had bought a Copperbanded Butterfly to take care of my aiptasia problem, at least the small ones. The larger ones I used Aiptaisia X and it did the job. But I actually left one large anenome to feed my butterflys and its working out great. They remain actively grazing on rock and actually the one anenome has gotten much bigger and looks darn cool I must say. Seems to me the best way to control em is to add livestock that eats em, cuz they are definetly out there. Aiptasia loving creatures like Peppermint Shrimp, Butterflys, Six Line Wrasse.. these are all things ive actually seen eating aiptasia in my own tank. I hear nudibranchs are also very effective for consuming aiptasias. Im sure all this was mentioned in previous posts so sorry for the redundancy. I just love the fact that I have renewable food sources within my system and thought Id share that :P

[fchidsey]

Tom this should of been the threat of the week. may be it can be stuck there. I think this is a problem that everybody in the reef community battles. (just my thoughts)

[fchidsey]

Ok so last night while the lights were out I began looking at the tank with a flashlight. I observed three rocks with many aptasia on and in the rocks. at this point the setup of the tank is so new it is not a big deal to remove the rock from the tank and soak it in something. what is the best solution for me to soak these rocks in to for sure kill the aptasia. the last thing I want in this new build is this creature.

[tdwyatt]

Fresh water (not tapwater, fresh RO/DI NO SALT!) with daily changes for a week. Of course, this will need to be done in a container seperate from living corals and misc. other critters.

It will also kill most any other marine inverts in/or on the rock, but it will kill the iptasia for sure without any lasting effects on the suitability of the rock and no caustic effect on the hobbyist. Very safe.

The alternative to this is to make a pint or so of the kalkpaste and pour it over the surface of the rock while it is submersed in ASW. You can allow it to stay so for a few hours, then rinse the rock with clean ASW to remove the kalkpaste. You'll need to treat both top and bottom of the rock to assureAiptasi spp. removal, but it will have minimal effects on the other critters not on the surface of the rock.

It is a bit drastic, but effective and relatively safe for the hobbyist.


HTH


use pickling lime for the kalk

[fchidsey]

Thanks Tom, I'll go with the ro/di water in a 5 gallon bucket I have a couple of rocks to do.

[fchidsey]

Boy am I glad I did this, I took all of the rock that I bought from CL (100lbs) and doing the fresh water soak. A flashlight during dark is revealing all kinds of nasty critters that are comming out of the rocks (bristle worms, other worms) and Larva swimming around I'll try to photo.

[jenglish]

Originally Posted by fchidsey

Tom this should of been the threat of the week. may be it can be stuck there. I think this is a problem that everybody in the reef community battles. (just my thoughts)

You know Tom, I have thought about making a sticky in Pests and Hitchhikers for common problems, with a link to this and Mr. Peanut's Hyposalinty thread. How many reefers out there have never had a battle with aiptasia?