Do I have a pest here? ID PLEASE

[SnowManSnow]

I think this may be an Apastia.... spelling....

What do you guys think.. No the best pic.. but this thing is pretty small right now.

If it IS INDEED a pest should I pick up a pepermint shirmp? I have a cleaner in there.. would they clash.. do Pepermint shrimp eat aneomes, corals, that kind of thing that I may purchase in the future?

Thanks
B

 

[SnowManSnow]

OOPS.. sorry, i meant for this to be in the ID section.. sorry bout that.

 

[Anonymous]

Impossible to tell from that picture. To me it looks like it could also be either a tubeworm of some sort or a vermetid snail.

Regards,
David Mohr

 

[ChrisRD]

I agree it is tough to tell from that pic, but it could be an aptasia.

If it does turn out to be aptasia, and you only see one, I'd just try nuking it with the kalk treatment before adding any shrimp.

 

[SnowManSnow]

There is another to the lower left of the one i have circled... about 5 o'clock down. I guess I should just watch it for a few weeks?

 

[saltnmyeye]

looks like aiptasia to me. if they get big, say 1" in diameter, they could catch small fish. a peppermint shrimp would do fine and shouldnt hurt any of your corals. :wink:

 

[ChrisRD]

I'd try the kalk thing first (do a search for more information). Sometimes you can pick-off the few that you have with that and you're done.

 

[SnowManSnow]

ive seen some pposts about lemon juice... anyone try that?

 

[ErikD]

Lemon juice? Why put something in your tank that could mess with the pH?

If it is too small to ID now, I would would wait a bit for it to get bigger before I do anything to it. You could be nuking something cool!

 

[Len]

Well, technically kalk screws with your pH too Lemon juice doesn't work for me. Hot kalk paste (or better yet, chemical lye NaOH) works better. I've heard good things about Joe's Juice too.

 

[benthos]

In a brief experience I had with apstasia I was lucky enough to find a peppermint shrimp who loved the stuff. But wouldnt plain ole boiling water in a syringe kill it just the same as joes juice or kalk?

 

[SnowManSnow]

I think its a chemical "burn" that you cause on the little guys. Although if you were to boil the rock...not that you'd want to... I'm sure it would adversely affect the things.

Have a good one..

 

[ChrisRD]

I've had good luck with peppermints too, but some folks report mixed results with them. IME they seem to be better at taking out the smaller aptasia and preventing reinfestation than wiping out the larger ones.

As for the kalk/boiling water thing, IME it's better to use both - ie., boil the kalk mixture before use. I've had some aptasia return after the application of boiled water and after the kalk thing, but never after the boiling kalk thing.

FWIW, I never actually inject the aptasia either. I just coat them and the area they inhabit with the boiling kalk mix. I turn off all pumps before doing this so as not to get the stuff on other critters that I don't want dead.

HTH