Hey guys,

I'm fairly new to the hobby and recently purchased an established 2 year old 100 gallon system on e-bay. It came with 125 lbs of live rock and 100 lbs of live sand. All of the power heads, T-5 lighting system, sump, protein skimmer, live stock, and much more. It's been running for over a week now and has been doing great. I moved the entire system along with 70 gallons of its original water. However, there are a large amount of Aiptasia anenomes on every rock. If I had to guess, probably over 100 of them in various sizes. I went to the local reef store and they sold me some calcium to put on them to kill them, but there are just too many. The store owner told me that my best option is to put my live rock in the sun and dry them out for a few days. I don't want to do that because I would hate to have to cycle the system all over again. I heard peppermint shrimp, copperbanded, raccoon butterfly's would be a natural way to kill them. However, if I keep corals, the butterfly's may make a meal out of them. What are your experiences and recommendations? Because I would eventually like to add some more corals to the system.

Copperbands are great at eating aiptasia but most don't survive long in captivity and they are not reef safe.

Peppermint shrimp are the best solution short and long term. They are not 100% reef safe as some will eat certain polyps. I had one that would eat polyps from a Stylophora SPS coral. I pulled him out and replaced him with another peppermint that does not eat any coral polyps(yet). You just have to keep an eye on them.

"Peppermint shrimp (Lysmata wurdemanni) and similar species often, but not always, consume Aiptasia, although they seem to prefer other foods. They also prey on small crustaceans, like copepods and amphipods, in the rock and sand. Sometimes, they are general polyp (coelenterate) predators. In this case, polyps refers to a group of animals that includes corals, anemones, and various other organisms for which we pay money.

Sometimes camel shrimp (Rhynchocinetes durbanensis) are sold as peppermint shrimp, so be careful! In general, many or most of the shrimp sold as peppermint shrimp are not L wurdemanni, but some will eat Aiptasia."

You can also inject the aiptasia with boiling water, Joe's Juice, Limewater(kalkwasser), vinegar, etc. etc. All these work at killing them but only the ones you can see and reach.

I always keep at least 1 Peppermint in my 75g reef and 1 in the 29g display refugium. Occasionally, I will see 1 or 2 glass nems pop up but they will be gone within a day or so once the Peppermint spots it.

How and what do I use to inject them?? I think I am down to one or two from like 15.

I had to pull rocks out and scrape them off.

Boss,

They are just like VD for a salt tank. Don't worry, you will eventually get them. They almost always come in with LR or on a coral frag plug. I have also seen them attached to clam and snail shells.

Chi6488,

A hypodermic needle comes in handy for injecting them. Kalk paste work the best for the money. Look at the grocery store in the canning section for Mrs. Wage's pickling lime. It's $2.50 for a 1 pound can. Mix up a small amount of water and stir in the powder until it turns white and pasty and draw it in the syringe.

Sometimes you can get the needle in the mouth of the glass nem but they usually retract quickly. All you need to do is get within about 1/2 inch of the mouth and squirt the paste. The nem will swallow it and will soon be dead.