Saturday, April 3, 2010

Unwanted Guest

I meant to get to all the fish in the tank before posting shots of the corals, but something new to me came up this weekend.  The coral (zoa) pictured below has always had the "guest" protruding from the left side.  As a novice, I never knew what it was.  I just assumed it was a different form of the same coral.  Over the last couple days, I started noticing more of those growths popping up around the tank.  Turns out it's an aiptasia anenome -- a typically unwanted guest in reef tanks.  They're extremely hardy and aggressive in expansion.  Left unchecked, I understand, they'll take over a tank and crowd out (physically and chemically) desired corals.


There's a variety of opinion on how to deal with these: you can add livestock to the tank that has an affinity for eating the aiptasia, chemically burn them with a variety of substances, quarantine the rock and treat them in a separate tank, and so on.


I've decided a dual approach of peppermint shrimp to deal with the small ones and Aiptasia-X to burn the large.  Four peppermint shrimp were added to the tank today.  I'll try chemicals in a day or two.





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