Butterfly for Apistia control?

[nbd13]

Hey guys,

well after trying to remove the apistia with Joe Juice and having some success i have decided its not enough. I have some spots in my tank i cant get to. i mean its 44" front to back and i cant get to the middle back bottom.....

i also tried some pepermint shirmp, but once i added them i never saw them again.....

so i have come to the conclusion that a butterfly fish might be a nice addition to the tank and help control the apistia.

so i ask are there anyother butterflies out there other than the copperband that eat apistia? i love the copperband, but they are so difficult.

Also what are the chances that i can get a copperband to eat apistia? do they all eat it? or is it hit and miss?

thanks guys!

Nick

[Detritivore]

the copperbands are hit and miss...there was an article in Coral mag. recently about aiptasia control, and it said the "best" or most "natural" way was to use berghia nudibranchs(aiptasia are the only thing they eat)

[Orion76]

Nick, this is how you dish out Joe's Juice justice in a large tank without even getting your hands wet!

[theturtleclub]

i got both peppermints and a copperband and still have them i'm looking for the berghia nudibranchs now but can't find them anywhere so i'm dealing with them for now until i do

[nbd13]

Timon- Care to explain what theat long tube in the center is? very nice setup! that would work out great for me!

the only problem with berghia nudibranchs is i hear once they get in the current they are going to get stuck to a closed loop intake or some powerhead or something....

keep the suggetions coming

thanks guys

Nick

[Orion76]

Nick, the long tube is a rigid airline tube, you should be able to find it at a good LFS. I superglued the Joe's Juice tip to one end and connected the syringe to the other end with regular flexible airline tubing. Works like a charm

If you can't find any this site sells it:
http://www.aquaticeco.com/index.cfm/.../5954/cid/2324

[nbd13]

Thanks i think i may try this. It would be perfect to get the pacth of 5-7 that i cant reach right now....

Nick

[jwaltman21]

Nick:

Give the peppermints some time. It took a good month or so for them to take care of my aiptasia problem. BTW I didn't see mine for a while as they are nocturnal.

- Jamie

[nbd13]

I cant even find them at night.....

Nick

[mesocosm]

Greetings All !

... so i have come to the conclusion that a butterfly fish might be a nice addition to the tank and help control the apistia.

so i ask are there anyother butterflies out there other than the copperband that eat apistia? i love the copperband, but they are so difficult.

Ahhh yes ... the never-ending aiptasia wars ...:2gunsfiri :destroy:


Here's something from another thread which I hope will be of use ...

Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">Originally Posted by Detritivore



hi all,

in my 20 gallon, i have a few aiptasia. the problem is, they are all quite small, and most of them are in hard to reach places (behind the rocks, between corals, etc...) which make it hard for me to use joes juice or anything of that nature. any ideas as to what i should do?

TIA, tim



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Welcome to the Aiptasia Wars ... :destroy: ... :2gunsfiri .

There are three main response pathways to choose from:
(1) Physical Removal
(2) Chemical
(3) Biological

Physical Removal
Physical removal of Aiptasia from their places of attachment is only viable if you can do it outside of the display system ... so this is probably not an option for your situation. ALL of the Aiptasia must be removed from the attachment. The issue is that unremoved tissue can regenerate into a complete animal. Aiptasia reproduction/regeneration can be very problematic ...


Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">



Anemones can reproduce sexually and asexually. The latter method, termed cloning, most commonly occurs by longitudinal fission, inverse budding or marginal budding, but pedal laceration is the method used by Aiptasia (Muller-Parker, pers. comm.) Cloning is common in some anemone species and results in extensive patches of clones on reef bottoms. Cloning is considered to be adaptive in the colonization of space because clones inherit high fitness from the adjacent parent (Shick 1991, Ayre and Grosberg 1995) and because budded clones can colonize space rapidly (G. Muller-Parker, pers. comm.). Pedal laceration in Aiptasia entails very low reproductive effort (Hunter 1984), and this process also ensures that symbiotic zooxanthellae are contained in the propagules (Muller-Parker and D'Elia 1997).

Extracted from:
A NEW RECORD OF ANEMONE BARRENS IN THE GALAPAGOS
By: Thomas. A. Okey, Scoresby. A. Shepherd, and Priscilla C. Martinez
http://www.conservationinstitute.org/anemonebarrens.htm



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Chemical
Chemical treatments are very effective, but you've got to be able to get at the Aiptasia. If you're unwilling to disrupt your rock structures and/or coral arrangements, then this pathway won't be very effective.

There's another, less discussed, tangent of chemical treatment: Nutrient Reduction. Bob (Aged Salt) has pointed out that the establishment and maintenance of a low nutrient (oligotrophic) environment has the potential to eradicate Aiptasia populations over time.
Hmmm ... ZEOvit methodology as an Aiptasia control strategy ... ... very cool! ...


Biological
This is perhaps the best option in your current situation. You have many choices, but the irritating thing about biological control strategies is that the Aiptasia predators that you introduce may be inconsistent and apathetic in their predation of Aiptasia. This is compounded by the possibility that some of the predators will develop a taste for something other than Aiptasia ... very annoying.

Well documented Aiptasia predators include ...

Peppermint Shrimp (as already mentioned ...): My major problem with them has been that about 1 in 12 develop a taste for polyps ... typically mushrooms and Palythoa. I've observed that Pacific specimens are typically less likely to go after polyps than Atlantic specimens ... go figure ... but opinions on this correlation differ. You pays your money, and you takes your chances ... and so it goes.

Butterfly Fishes: Butterfly fish as Aiptasia predators include Chelmon rostratus (Copperband Butterfly), Chaetodon auriga (Auriga Butterfly), and Chaetodon unimaculatus (Okey, Shepard and Martinez, 2003) ... but I've never really trusted any of them in an SPS reef tank.

Damselfishes: One of the commonly overlooked fish predator options are two damselfishes from the Genus Stegastes ... the Island Major (Stegastes arcifrons), and the Southern Whitetail Major (Stegastes beebei).


Quote:
<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=6 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=alt2 style="BORDER-RIGHT: 1px inset; BORDER-TOP: 1px inset; BORDER-LEFT: 1px inset; BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px inset">The two species of territorial damselfishes mentioned above, Stegastes leucorus beebei and S. arcifrons, are known predators of the Aiptasia anemone in the Galapagos (Grove and Lavenberg 1997, and SAS personal observations).




Extracted from:
A NEW RECORD OF ANEMONE BARRENS IN THE GALAPAGOS
By: Thomas. A. Okey, Scoresby. A. Shepherd, and Priscilla C. Martinez
http://www.conservationinstitute.org/anemonebarrens.htm



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WetWebMedia has some good stuff on Genus Stegastes Damselfishes at:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/stegastes.htm

Stegastes leucorus beebei is actually kind of cool looking:
http://www.wetwebmedia.com/DamselPIX...0Juv%20GAL.jpg



Nudibranchs: And then there's the Nudibranch option ... much has been written on the Aiptasia eating nudibranch Berghia verrucicornis. Availabilty and cost are a whole other set of issues ...

Everything you ever wanted to about culturing Berghia nudibranchs is at:
http://www.breedersregistry.org/Repr...berghia_bb.htm





Other threads to review for further reading and opinions are:

A Funkyskunk thread:
http://www.zeovit.com/forums/showth...hlight=aiptasia

Includes Bob's Low Nutrient Observation:
http://www.zeovit.com/forums/showth...hlight=aiptasia

Peppermint Shrimp gone Bad:
http://www.zeovit.com/forums/showth...hlight=aiptasia

Includes boobookitty's Super-concentrated Kalkwasser Method:
http://www.zeovit.com/forums/showth...hlight=aiptasia


JMO ... HTH


Extracted From ZeoThread:
a slight aiptasia problem (Detritovore. 09-08-2005)

HTH

[nbd13]

Thanks Gary, i already read those links.

just wondering if there is another butterfly that will eat this stuff besides the copperband.....

thanks

Nick

[The man]

I had a copperband for a year sold him to a local and he died after he ate all his aiptasia. LOL
The fish ate every feather duster, aiptaisia, budding yuma, and never pecked at a single sps polyp that i have ever seen.
He ate mysis as well with frozen butterfly and angel food.
The person i sold him to i dont think he tried feeding mysis, But he lasted till he ran out of food. I regrett selling him. He was a cool fish.

[nbd13]

Thanks, i just dont know if i want to try a copperband, that why i was hoping there might be another species of butterfly that would eat this stuff.....

Nick

[Big E]

I'd highly recommend a Muelleri copperband if you can get one. They are a lot hardier than the common rostratus.

Mine eats mysis, fresh frozen scallops, shrimp,clams & of course aptasia. It's never touched any of my sps. Since I feed it shell fish, not sure if it would be okay with ornamental clams.

[G.Alexander]

Anybody experience with this fish ?



Acreichthys tomentosus

For a friend of mine the fish worked perfect but after eliminating the Aiptasia & Majano he nipped at LPS. This was the time when he has removed him.

G.Alexander