aptasia
Contents:
- [M] Need suggestions on cowfish, rock anemonies, etc.
by laurence/cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence) (16 Jan 1993)
- anenome's all over
by waynes/hppcih50.dtc.hp.com (Wayne Scott) (17 Jan 1994)
- (No Title)
by ()
by laurence/cco.caltech.edu (Dustin Lee Laurence)
Date: 16 Jan 1993
Newsgroup: rec.aquaria
sylvia-at-hplvec.LVLD.HP.COM (Sylvia Budak) writes:
[rock anemones, presumably Aptasia sp. (sp?)]
>burn them. What can one use for this. I am afraid to use a match for the
>chemicals on it. Should I just get a pointed piece of stainless steel boiling
>hot and brand the critters?
I used to try injections of boiling hot fresh water, but with little
success. I would guess that the brand would not work much better.
There was an article a while ago (in FAMA?) advocating injecting them with
calcium hydroxide (the kalkwasser that reefkeepers tend to use a lot of).
Unfortunately, even a saturated solution of Ca(OH)2 is apparently not basic
enough to kill them. As I recall, the author used some means to get a
supersaturated solution which was strong enough to work. The usefulness of
this method comes from the fact that both ions are already abundantly
present in seawater, so that it is harmless unless concentrated.
My own personal method (which I guess I ought to write up sometime) is
to use sodium hydroxide. This also has the virtue that both ions are
abundant in your tank already, but it can be easily mixed strong enough
for a certain kill.
*WARNING* It can in fact be easily mixed strong enough to take the skin
off of your hands & other body parts. This stuff is far, far more soluble
than calcium hydroxide, and you should take all of the standard
precautions. If you don't know what you're doing, I can try to help you,
but don't try anything you're not sure about. In any case, I'm not
responsible for what happens if you try it. All warnings go double if you
make your aqueous solution from dry sodium hydroxide, as I did.
*END WARNING*
I don't inject in in the tank anymore, because the time I tried it tended
to hang in little globules that dissolved slowly, and I'm afraid that one
of my voracious clowns will take a bite of one and burn their mouth and
gills to a cinder. I remove the rock in question and inject the stuff over
the sink, then rinse it well before replacing (rinsing in seawater would
probably be best).
You get a "kill radius" of a cm or so if done carefully, where the stuff
will also kill the purple calcareous algae and other things. It's
important to start the process as soon as possible, so you do this as few
times as you can.
I use a needle, because I would imagine that it's more effective to inject
it into the anemone directly, but my solution is actually strong enough to
burn an Aptasia to death just by dribbling sodium hydroxide over it.
This method has had a 100% mortality rate every time that I could get to
the base of the Aptasia. A few times I've had to kill ones that had their
foot in a deep crevice that I couldn't get the needle into, and so I had
to guess where I wanted to dribble sodium hydroxide. Under these
conditions, the kill rate was perhaps 50% or so, probably depending on
whether I guessed it's location correctly.
Finally, I have never noticed any adverse effects on anything else in the
tank, even the two times I tried injecting directly in the tank. However,
I would still rinse the rock before replacing, as yet another safety
precaution. If you can see what's left of the anemone, I also scrape it
off (which becomes pretty easy after it's well burned) so that I don't
have decaying anemone in my tank.
>Thanks in advance for any advice.
Hope that this is useful,
>Sylvia
--
Dustin Laurence "As sensitive and broad-minded humans, we must never
allow ourselves to be in any way judgmental of the
laurence-at-alice religious practices of other people, even when these
caltech.edu people clearly are raving space loons." -- Dave Barry
by waynes/hppcih50.dtc.hp.com (Wayne Scott)
Date: 17 Jan 1994
Newsgroup: alt.aquaria
In article <12005-at-blue.cis.pitt.edu>, epi2110f-at-vms.cis.pitt.edu writes:
|> hi,
|>
|> i have recently aquired a bunch of live rock from a freind who tore his tank
|> down. so i decided to change my fresh water tank into salt water. the problem
|> i am having is with anenome's. my frien had serioull neglected his tank
|> and it filled with these ugly brown long anenome's. and i cant
|> get rid of them. any ideas.
|>
|> tony
I've read a few books which had some suggestions for getting rid
of the anemones you are talking about, they are called Aiptasia anemones,
and can reproduce to epidemic proportions. I have a few in my tank, but
they have not gotten out of hand at all.
by
Good Luck,
Wayne
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