How fast...

Ithaca9

Reefing newb
...do aiptasia's spread? I received a piece of LR from a friend's tank. He said that the tank was aiptasia free, yet I found a tiny one in a crevis about 48 hours after putting it in the tank. This, even after I searched the rock over carefully before putting it in. Needless to say the entire rock got pulled from the tank.

Now I am paranoid because I see about a dozen very tiny feather duster-looking things (that could or could not be aiptasia) growing on the rock surface that the other one was sitting on. It has been one week since introducing the rock and five days since I yanked it from the tank. Should I pull this one as well, or am I pretty much screwed?
 
I doubt it could have spread in just a couple days. But aiptasia are believed to spread faster in nutrient-rich water, so it's possible that it could have. Every tank is different -- I've had majano anemones grow from 1 to dozens in months in my tank, whereas other people on here have had just 1 majano forever.

You should be able to tell if the new things are feather dusters or aiptasia just by looking at them. To be sure, buy yourself a pair of peppermint shrimp. They will usually take care of any aiptasia before it takes ahold.
 
Do aiptasia spread?
...and how,fairly quickly but not as fast as you're describing.Maybe they were already there or something else.When you are 100% sure it is aiptasia,remove the rock and blast the area with a kalk or salt paste,very hot water,lemon juice,buy Joe's Juice.
 
I tried the lemon juice trick the other day and it didnt do anything however I didnt have a needle at hand to actually inject them I just had a syrenge to squirt them it made them suck into the rock and a couple hours later they were back out.I have so many that I am taking out a couple rocks at a time and am soaking them in cold fresh water hoping that will do the trick.
 
peppermint shrimp do like to eat aptasia, but tend to stick to the smaller ones. Once they get too big, they leave them alone. If they are still small, get the shrimp asap to make sure they keep them under control.

-Doc
 
I would completely avoid putting your liverock in cold freshwater to get rid of your aptasia. There are other means that will not sacrifice the diversity of bacteria and fauna in your liverock where putting it in freshwater could harm the rest of the life on the rock. I have had peppermints eat aptasia that were 3.5 inces in diameter.... I mean HUGE! Blueline makes an excellent product called aptasia control that is totally reef safe and I stand behind it 100 percent. It rocks. I just bought a big piece of rock and blasted it with the aptasia control and whatever didn't get killed by that (which I think was all of it) was cleaned up by the peppermints. I couldn't wait for them to do the job naturally with this rock because they were harming nearby corals.
 
Oh and just as an example, in a matter of about 3-4 months I had 5 peppermints clean out over 100 aptasia in my tank. No overexaggeration.
 
I would completely avoid putting your liverock in cold freshwater to get rid of your aptasia. There are other means that will not sacrifice the diversity of bacteria and fauna in your liverock where putting it in freshwater could harm the rest of the life on the rock. I have had peppermints eat aptasia that were 3.5 inces in diameter.... I mean HUGE! Blueline makes an excellent product called aptasia control that is totally reef safe and I stand behind it 100 percent. It rocks. I just bought a big piece of rock and blasted it with the aptasia control and whatever didn't get killed by that (which I think was all of it) was cleaned up by the peppermints. I couldn't wait for them to do the job naturally with this rock because they were harming nearby corals.


Have you been taking typing classes?:mrgreen:

I'm one of those unfortunates who has tried over a dozen peppermints and still nothing.I wouldn't of use freshwater over the entire rock,either.
 
Sorry for the late messages... Thanks everyone. I wil definitely keep all those ideas in mind if this type of thing happens again. But, I think I overreacted a little bit. I am pretty sure that I got the first rock out of the tank in time. I'll get a peppermint shrimp just in case, but having one may infringe on my plans of getting a coral banded shrimp. I hear I would run the risk of the coral banded shrimp making a meal out of the pep?

The little buggers that I thought were aiptaisa are actually little feather dusters that are growing in a bed of very green, very healthy, thick, grass-like algae (although it may even be some type of plant because this stuff is really thick and stalky.) It made for a really hard time ID'ing. The little dusters shoot back into their little tubes extremely fast when my hand waves near them or anything gets too close... aiptasia's wouldn't shoot in that quickly, correct?

Also... Matt (me) will be doing a lot more research before he accepts any more donations! I also took two urchins from the same friend, and surprise! one is devouring my coralline! That little sh*t is getting donated to the pet store SO FAST. I love my coralline.
 
Be carefull with a coral banded shrimp.They have been known to catch and eat fish,and they like coral flesh.I had one eat a 6" rock full of yellow polyps in one night.
 
Coral banded shrimp are famous for eating other animals, not just smaller shrimp.

And aiptasia will retract into rocks too. The difference is that feather dusters are contained within a hard tube, and aiptasia just have a fleshy stalk.

Urchins are also well known for loving coralline. Hopefully the other one doesn't start, if it's not already.
 
I may stick to peppermint shrimp for now then. Maybe in a later tank with no coral and larger fish only for the coral banded shrimp. They're such interesting creatures!

And the second urchin has not started eating the coralline yet, but I'll watch closely. I'll also post pics of the tank soon since I haven't put any up yet. Perhaps after I get the new skimmer up and running.
 
That urchin is sooo outta here. I'm bringing him to the pet store that said they would take him ASAP. I just watched him move a couple small rocks with corals on them, bashing one into the glass. Also, he picks up corals and small snails and carries them on his back for days. I had to move some of my rockwork this morning to get to a piece of hard coral that he carried away last night. Thank god I didn't pay anything for him.

He's left trails through the coralline. Since my tank has quite a bit of coralline in it already, do you think that this will grow back within a few months?
 
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