Aiptasia

August 4, 2004
Did an order from a place in the Florida Keys--a couple who collects mostly plants, some smaller animals and ships nationwide. Mainly I wanted macro algae for stocking the new refugium we’re making, but I also bought some glass shrimp (small beasties to breed and provide food for larger beasties), a new brittle star, some worm clusters, a whole bunch of small snails and micro starfish. All this is basically to improve the cleanup crew. Oh yes, and 3 hermit crabs, despite all my conflicting feelings about those things. The hermit crabs were so small, I promptly lost track of them and can’t say if they are even alive--time will tell!

The sender warned that the worm clusters might have aiptasia anemones on them, so they should be quarantined. I did quarantine them, and they do, indeed, have aiptasia on them, so the problem is, how do I get rid of the aiptasia so they can go in the main tank and look pretty? Aiptasia are small, virulent anemones that spread so quickly, they can take over a tank in no time. Once you have them, getting rid of them is nearly impossible. The books say various things will eat them (easiest for me would be peppermint shrimp), but that even when they appear to be gone, they may not be, and will come back from some spec that the predator missed. So on reflection, it was dumb to buy these clusters, because I think they will have to live in quarantine forever! (And I don’t know if I’ll keep a quarantine tank set up another month, let alone forever!)

A recent article in a magazine on uninvited aquarium guests talked about aiptasia, as well as a nasty isopod that kills fish by attaching to their sides at night and sucking blood or even internal organs. This creature is typically a hitchhiker on live rock, but may arrive by other means, and one of those means could easily be among the fronds of macroalgae that some fool woman just bought from the Keys! The Keys order arrived Wed., and I bought the magazine that talked about these things just two days later. THAT gave me plenty to worry about. One clump of macroalgae went in the quarantine tank, but the other just got rinsed in saltwater and dumped in the refugium. When I saw a bunch of small creatures swimming around in the rinse water, I dumped them in too--didn’t want to waste what I assumed were amphipods and copepods, because they are good guys for making fish food. But any one of those guys could easily have been an isopod. Marine tanks are not conducive to peaceful sleep!

I took my son and daughter in law over to the local dealer to show them her large tank (6’ by 2’, 180 gallons). They studied it carefully and declared it was too small; I need to make my next tank 8 feet! While there, I picked up a bicolor blenny to replace the one that died months ago. It was one of my favorite fish, the way it backs into holes and looks at you. I also bought a new Sinularia that is greenish and has many small branches, unlike the first one that has a few thick fingers (pictured in upper right).

I continue to battle cyanobacteria algae without success. We hope to get the new refugium/sump installed next weekend, and “they” say that over time, that should help keep cyanobacteria in check. We shall see. I’ll take pictures and describe the sump conversion project next time.