Hello! I have a 180g main tank and a 60 gallon sump. The sump has about 60 pounds of live rock and a 20g refugium with a bristle star (cause he eats my snails and crabs). My tank is pretty self sufficient I feed zooplankton about once a month. The last two rocks came with roughly a trillion aptasia. I don't want to manually or chemically deal with this problem. I am all about the ecosystem. What can I add to my little reef to naturally destroy these pests that will leave my zoas, polys, and corals alone? HELP!
I know some of the forum members here have been using an aptasia eatting nudibranch. I think its something called a berghia? However, I personally don't have any experience with them but I hear alot about the berghia.
I don't see that many except on the rock in the first picture. (I'm sure I'm only seeing the tip of the iceberg) Any rocks that can be easily removed? I burn and scrape the attachment of any on rocks I can remove. Berghia are definitely the primo way to go but they are expensive. You also have the problem of them starving to death in your tank once the aiptasia are gone. I've had good luck with Aiptasia X but technique is important with that method.
I've used berghia nudibranchs with great success. It took about 4 months to get all the aiptasia but it was successful. We did a group buy in the club early last summer.
Yuch! Yeah I think berghia is the way to go. It will take a while with that bad of an infestation. Would make for a cool time lapse picture over serveral months.
tbh, i got a couple peppermints and let them do it, within 2 weeks i was clear of all but 1 large one. which is too big for them to get and atm its not too big of a deal to worry about as any new ones the peps take care of. What works for some, doesn't work for others and my peps worked for me. They can go rogue but as long as i have at least 1 aptasia in my tank, it will make food for them so the threat they pose is limited. Just my 2 cents.
I've got a couple peppermints who have tripped in size in a month but they aren't even touching the pests.
