Mobile Bay Reef Keepers

HAMsmith wrote:If Aiptasia could walk they would have taken over the world by now.

My theory is that since they are such a-holes when you kill them they release a thousand spores.

Fortunately, they do not release spores. However, they do something nearly as bad. Every single cell that composes these particular anemones is what is called 'pluripotent' (or 'totipotent'), meaning that they can differentiate in order to make an entirely new animal. That is why they are a pain--every cell left means a potential new anemone.

Why can't corals be as hardy as aptasia???

I was setting up a QT like 2 months ago to put a sick fish in, and pulled all the water for the QT (30G) out of the main tank. Just so happens, i sucked up an tiny aptasia anemone by accident. The fish never made it to the QT tank (he died b4 i had a chance to fish him out of the main), so i never hooked up the rest of the items for the QT tank (ie. heater, lights).

Today, that tank has had no filtration, no heat, no air, nada... the water sits at 66 degrees, and that little bastard is still alive on the bottom, stretched towards the top of the tank, about 2.5 inches tall.

I swear, they are damn near indestructable...

I got a peppermint from Progressive; what he didn't eat, I injected with the alkalinity part of B-Ionic. Gone, and never came back.

My lil bro tried hot water injection, but found better results squirting Joes' Juice directly at them.

For direct injection, vinegar is flawless.

I had a bad aptasia problem in my 30gal. I tried everything- vineger, hot water etc. Finally i got some joe's juice, it definetly did the trick! it came with everthing to feed them the killing juice- they melted. The trick is to get all you pumps turned off and put a few drops above them and let them eat it. i did this every other day for about a week. Wait for the smaller ones to grow, then get them too- it makes it easier. my tank has been aptasia free for over two months so far (plenty of time for new ones to grow- but didnt!)!!

I swear, you can't win for losing...

So i got my order in today from etropicals. Everything was good - got 11 pepermint shrimp. Within 15 minutes of putting them in the tank, a wrasse ate one, a tang ate one - theres one that has been ripped in half - ARGHHHH!!! by the end of the night i prob won't have ANY left.

Expensive A$% meal.

Frustration has kicked in.

Yeah well that is the reef.

Are Aiptasia light sensitive? Specifically at night when I shine a flashlight on them do they retract?

Sorry to hear about your shrimp!

What is the update??

Aiptasia sp. are not really that sensitive to light (as far as the ones I have seen). They are photosynthetic, so they will react positively to the light, though some species may be 'startled' by an abrupt change in light. There are some corallimorphs (i.e. mushrooms--but don't be fooled, since they look like anemones with little dots at each tentacle tip), collectively called 'ball anemones', that are light sensitive. They are relatively common, so that may be what you are talking about.