LF: Aiptasia Eater

I got a Copperband solely for the purpose of eating aptasia hoping I could pass it along when my aptasia was gone so it wouldn't starve... It eats everything except aptasia... (Except for corals and inverts, it leaves them alone. Even my feather dusters). Not my .01 cent though, just a story

Most copper bands will eat it. (I'd say all, but after my expirience now it's most)
Also you could look into a matted filefish or berghia nudibranch. The nudibranch will for sure eat it, only problem is that they are small but the number of ways they could die in a tank is ridiculous. They have their own 1000 ways to die. If you have ornamental shrimp, they will eat the nudibranch. If the nudibranch falls into the center of the aptasia, it will die. Also they are pretty expensive... They have more plus sides than eating aptasia of course, they are rather easy to breed.
I don't know anything about the matted, haven't really looked into that one because I don't think it would have done well in my tank as far as aptasia food source goes and it'd be harder to catch and pass along than a butterflyfish


-Giancarlo
 
Unfurtunitly the best butterflies that eat em r not the copperband. The copper band may eat the smaller ones but usually wont touch the bigger ones unless its a big copperband. I had luck with a blueline butterfly being reef safe . Well least with what i have in my tank. Idk how many aptasia u have but u could kalk em
 
Just becareful if you go with the filefish, i had picked one up to eat a couple small aiptasia and instead of eating the aiptasia, he ate some of my zoas. Not saying that every fish will do that but that's what happened with me.
 
I had an aiptasia problem and bought a couple pep shrimp from a LFS about 3 months ago and the shrimp took care of the problem. I had a huge outbreak in my fuge. The shrimp took care of the problem for me and after almost 3 months still no signs of aiptasia. Since then I have learned from Reefwise that there are 2 types/species of pep shrimp. One will eat aiptasia and one will not. After learning that I guess I got lucky on the 2 I bought from a franchise LFS. After learning this from Reefwise I was told that they ONLY SELL the type that eat aiptasia so I bought more for my other tank. I hope this helps.
 
Berghia Nunibranches....I had bad aptisia few years ago in 150gallon tank, bought 6 of these guys and they cleaned them completely out in couple months. You dont see them as theyre nocturnal but aptisia is 100% of their diet so youll slowly see your aptisa dissapearing. Then once gone the slugs die off slowly I believe unless your supplying them with new aptisia or the apitisa spread can continue to support them
 
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