# Aiptasia ... I accidently killed a tank full of them.



## wildexpressions (May 3, 2010)

Does anyone know of anything of any type that can wipe out a tank of Aiptasia in a few days other than Berghai?

Here is why I ask.
I have several tanks I am using to culture various species of aiptasia. I don't know enough about them to tell you what species I have or anything like that. I just know that the colonies were sourced differently and are different to look at.

So two of the systems are doing very well and are full of aiptasia. In those systems there are very few other life forms. The odd pod, the odd worm, the odd tiny duster and a few little squirts here and there. 

The tank I'm writing about though is a completely different story. 

It too was full of aiptasia and as far as I know it was fine a few days ago. I have been side tracked with TorontoFrags and honestly do not remember when I last looked prior to looking in last night and discovering no aiptasia. 

The lights were out when I noticed it so I sat there wit ha flashlight and looked around and found a couple and that was it. What I did see was a ton of pods of all types and sizes. I pulled a couple of aiptasia from one of the other systems and dropped them in there and this morning they were gone. WTF?

So this morning I sit there with my coffee and have a good look. There are tons of squirts or various types although mostly the little white spongy looking ones and the greyish translucent ones, there are tons of little dusters, there are several various species of sponge colonies and pods of every description and all of this various life seems to be thriving in there. 

At first I saw no aiptasia but upon careful examination I find there are some but they seem to have shrunken down to tiny little 1/16th to 3/8th inch thin stalks with tiny little heads on them. They do not look like juvi's. They look like adults that have shrunk and they do not look happy happy happy like you expect a well fed aiptasia to look.

I have been far to busy to test the water but to some degree the fact that all of that other stuff is thriving tells me the water is decent. It should be as there are no fish, snails, crabs, corals or anything above what I've described. 

The aiptasia I dropped in there last night were med small, perhaps +1 inch tall with 1/2 inch heads and they are gone this morning. 

I have been very careful to not contaminate the aiptasia with Berghai's and there is little risk of it as my first Berghai's only hatched out 4 days ago and all of the adults are accounted for.

As I type this I have to beleive that I somehow contaminated the tank and there are Berghai juvi's in there but I do not see them if there are.


Anyway. Typical long story by me  but that is why I ask about ways to kill them.


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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

tom g said:


> Try a file fish... awesome


He's asking what killed his aiptasia, not how to kill them.


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## PACMAN (Mar 4, 2010)

My goodness, you may have stumbled onto a miracle aiptasia cure!

You are of the very few who want aiptasia lol.


Perhaps it was low lighting?


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

PACMAN said:


> My goodness, you may have stumbled onto a miracle aiptasia cure!
> 
> You are of the very few who want aiptasia lol.
> 
> Perhaps it was low lighting?


if it was aiptasia  or probably just to excited after TorontoFrags 

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## wildexpressions (May 3, 2010)

so I dropped in some fresh healthy aiptasia but the phone rang and I was gone for 15 minutes. When I came back they were gone.

So I dropped in some more and set up my camera because what ever was attacking them was too darn small for me to see. I meant to do a time lapse and I will later but I have t run out and do some service calls and then setup some new aiptasia breeding system ASAP. Here are some pix to hold you over.

This is approx 5 minutes after dropping in a healthy aiptasia. It is the brown blob in the middle being swarmed by the little specks.

























I know the specks don't look like it but they are moving relatively rapidly and 20 minutes later the aiptasia looked like a brown smudge on the rock. I am new ot breeding Berghai Nudi's so I do not know what juvi's look like or acgt like but they must be juvi Berghai Nudi's so my system somehow got contaminated.

I do not see how and I certainly do not see how it became contaminated with 1000's of them but there is no other explanation.

I will post more pic's and some video's later


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## sig (Dec 13, 2010)

unbelievably, but these "aliens" can finish all corals in the tank in this way

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## solarz (Aug 31, 2010)

wow, creepy...


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## wildexpressions (May 3, 2010)

darn service calls went way over time and I just got back. On the upside the last service call is going to pay for my services by giving me a 8000 watt 13 hp electric start generator ...sweet! Going to wire it up to my fish room.


So it is to late tonight to post the pix/vids I promised. 

I plan on marketing these Berghai Nudibranches and am pretty excited to see how fast they devoured the Aiptasia. My fear is that right now I have to get work on my system to make sure they do not ever get into one of my Aiptasia breeding tanks again. They only eat one thing so if I run out Aiptasia all my inventory of Beghai Nudibranches dies and I have to start over.

I knew that going in and thought I had taken precautions but even after being warned that they could eat 100's of Aiptasia in a day I was still caught off guard. Oddly enough there are still Aiptasia alive in the Berghai breeding tanks which is where the highest concentration of Berghai juvi's should be. 

I'm confused, excited and scared .... its sort of like being a virgin all over again


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