Red Sea Aiptasia-X Injured My Fish

[yayheaven]

Hi all, long time lurker.

For several weeks now I've been dealing with Red Sea Inc., disputing that using one of their products caused injury to one of my fish after the application of thier product, "Aiptasia-X".

Please be very careful when using this product on or near rocks that a fish resides in.

This is the beginning of what happened to me. I'm trying to spread the word because the company seems to have no answers for me about why this happened.

My initial letter to them sent on April 30 2008:

Greetings,

I am writing about the product Aiptasia-X that I used in my 44 Gallon Reef tank on 29 April, 2008. I purchased the product from MarineDepot.com over the weekend, and it was delivered to me that morning on the 29th when it was used.

I have one fish that has turned ill with what looks like sores all over his body. I have photos and videos of the fish, which is a Midas Blenny (ecsenius midas).

His home or bolt-hole is near where the aiptasias were and where the product was applied. As per the instructions all water movement was stopped in the tank for at least 15 minutes. In less than 24 hours he began to exhibit what looked like discoloration on his body.

At present his right eye is swollen over with a film and his body is mottled with discoloration.

There is no other reason I can think of that the fish would have fallen ill. For the two days previous his evening meal has been brine shrimp gut loaded with Naturose, and otherwise eats frozen mysis and pellets.

This particular tank holds four seahorses, a purple firefish and a scooter dragonet and they mostly stay clear of the Midas Blenny's small territory. The tank has been running for ten months. The corals in this tank are photosynthetic (1 gorgonian and several stalks of xenia elongata).

As you will hopefully understand with me having a seahorse tank and knowing that these creatures are especially sensitive, my tank is very well cared for and even using the aiptasia product was a last result as they were too big for peppermint shrimp to take interest in.

I suppose what I am looking to ask is; by labeling the product as reef-safe, was the product intended to be used in a tank that is housing fish, or, is it possible that certain fish are overly sensitive to this product if they have direct exposure to the product waste after the aiptasias have been "imploded".

I am expecting that my Midas Blenny will not recover. As I mentioned I have photos and videos if you would like to observe them.

Thank you for your time. I look forward to receiving your response.

Heaven C.
Anaheim, CA USA

I took video of my fish that morning to show the marks on him.

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You can view the video HERE.
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Their response to my first letter:

Dear Heaven,

Aiptasia-X is all natural product that includes only elements found naturally in salt water, this is why Aiptasia-x doesn’t change the chemistry of the water even after extreme treatment.

The product is 100% reef safe, meaning that you can even treat corals colonies infected with Aiptasia , without damaging the delicate coral tissues and definitely will not cause any damage / irritation to fish. In our development and experiments we also observed that the Aiptasia – X stimulate the tank inhabitants, aka. Fish and all crustacean to eat the aiptasia residuals without any signs of problems.

The idea behind Aiptasia- X is that the active ingredients are suspended in some kind of “Micella” which is like a liquid capsule and only after ingested by the anemone it becomes free .

Although I understand that this is the only change you made in the tank, I don’t think that there is a straight connection to the illness of the fish, all the more so the other sessile fish didn’t show any signs of illness.

Best regards

Sharon Ram

Chief Scientist - Red Sea Group

I don't think she quite got that my fish wasn't diseased, so I wrote back once again with more details.

Greetings Sharon,

Thank you for your quick response. I appreciate your time. I would like to give you more information about the status of my fish and the results that occured after a secondary application of the product.

The fish never showed any signs of disease, but after the initial use of the product and my reason for making contact, he exhibits what appears to be consistent with chemical burns, including bleaching and irritation of the scales and fins. The consensus for his treatment among fellow reefkeepers was simply to continue to keep the water clean and not remove him to a hospital tank or add any medications as to not continue to irritate his already-sensitive skin or aggravate the problem.

With no treatment, after 24 hours the swelling in his eye was reduced significantly and the discolored areas on his body showed signs of spreading but did not appear to get any worse. At 8PM later that evening, 31 April, I added a product to the tank to aid with regenerating his slime coat named StressCoat+.

On the 1st of May, his eye appeared to be back to normal, and his scales appeared to have a darker coloration where the bleaching appeared to be healing over. Throughout the time he was healing he was always eating and had the ability to swim normally.

None of the other fish or corals show any signs of degradation as previously stated, and still remains true. With the assurance from you that the product was safe, I decided to use a second application the product in the tank, with reservation, and hopefully determine whether or not the product was irritating this particular fish.

On the 4th of May, I reapplied a much smaller amount of the product to an area on a rock nearby to where I put the first appliation. Within an hour the Midas Blenny was exhibiting bleaching of the skin. He appeared to swim with discomfort, and refused to go near the area where the product was applied for several hours until he was forced to find safety during lights-out.

Again no other fish or the corals showed signs that they were irritated by the product. It has only been this one fish, who takes residence in the area that the product was applied. I can assure you that the bottle was well shaken, and the product entered the syringe and was applied to the aiptasias quickly. All devices that create water movement were turned off before application, and left off for at least 15 minutes after finishing with the application.

With regret, I have to insist that the use of the product in my tank is causing irritation to my Midas Blenny, and I cannot continue to use the product risking his well-being, although the product did work well to kill the aiptasias it was applied to.

I would like to give you more information about the setup of my tank if it will help with further researching the chemistry of the product.

[[A big long stream of my set up info and inhabitants went here. Omitted for length]]

The video of my fish after first use of the product can be found here:

http://www.viddler.com/explore/YayHeave ... l=51208172

A second video showing recovery to his eye and overall health is here:

http://www.viddler.com/explore/YayHeave ... l=20508134

The day after the second video was taken I had reapplied the product. I do not currently have an updated video of the result of the second application and the fresh new blotches on his skin.

From here I would like to request a copy of your MSDS to help me to continue to investigate why or how the product is doing this. I am hoping that we can come up with a way to determine what might be causing his susceptibility to becoming irritated to your product.

Again thank you for your time and attention to the matter. I look forward to hearing back from you.

Regards,

Heaven C.
Anaheim, CA USA

Three hours almost to the minute, I received this response in my email from Sharon again:

Dear Heaven

Thank you very much for the information you provide me with.

I further investigated the issue, but unfortunately I came to the conclusion that this is a single phenomenon that occurred only with your Middas Blenny. I contact some of our biggest distributors around the word that are also deal with importing livestock and ask them to introduce the Aiptasia-x to the Middas quarantine tanks.

None of them replied with any signs of irritation.

After your second treatment the illness signs returned so I can’t argue with that and it might be due to some type of individual sensitivity to the product, although it contains only elements you can find in any salt blend.

I will continue to investigate the issue and I would be more than happy to share any conclusion I’ll get.

Sharon Ram

R&D - Red Sea Group

I will be continuing to follow up with them to find out whether or not they've learned anything new, though I doubt it. I still haven't received the MSDS a month later.

I do NOT have the one and only fish in the world that has an allergy to this product. It can't be so.

I'm trying to get the word out at several forums I belong to so that no other fish are hurt, so I'll do my best with following up to this post with info.

All of the minor details about the incident as it was unfolding over that period of time is posted HERE, where for sure I'll have updates posted. There is quite a bit of info there that would make this initial post go several pages long if I put it here.

In the meantime PLEASE be careful if you use this product. And as it turns out the aiptasias came back in the same exact crevices they were supposed to be removed from within two weeks. :x

Thank you for reading.

 

[brandonberry]

Most people use a paste made from Calcium Hydroxide (lime) to kill aiptasia. I do not know what is in their product, but lime has a really high pH and possibly could cause skin damage to a fish that came in direct contact with it. I personally have never had a problem using it though.

 

[yayheaven]

I'm actually not sure at all what to use these days.

I know Joe's Juice is an old favorite, but tried this product first since it was "all the rage". I had previously tried injecting lemon juice which ended up spreading them.

I was hoping to avoid taking the tank apart to pull out the infested rocks to get it handled. *sigh*

 

[saltysupply]

thats very interesting would like to know if anyone else has had this issue or if those livestock dealers really tested it