My Berghia reducing the Aiptasia population by 1 (1 Viewer)

[SnMan]

Hi All,
In one of the previous threads about what tanks people have I made the comment that all I had was a 75g full of Aiptasia and algae. Sorry about stealing that thread. Anyway, over the weekend I visited lilred1995vette and we laughed about it. Well, he said that everyone thought that I was kidding and that I should post some pictures about my experience or should I say quest to rid my tank of Aiptasia. So here are a couple of pics but unfortunately they are stills. Watching them in action is something! In #627 the Aiptasia is just in front of the Berghia (white little critter) and in #628 it is shrunken down and he is starting to eat it. It took him about 5 minutes to fill his belly and move on.

 

[texasmckanes]

Very cool! It's my understanding that they are obligate feeders on aiptasia. Is that correct? or will they eat anything else? If they only eat nuisance anemones, I'm sure that there are local people, myself included, who would be willing to give you a rental fee to borrow him for a period of time.
-B

 

[Guest]

We ordered 5 Berghia from berghia.net; they were small but we got them and acclimated very very slowly and put them in the tank ever so carefully all lin one place just like the directions said..that was about 3 weeks ago, haven't seen a one since. Unfortunately we had also obtained 6 peppermint shrimp 1 week prior. Well the peppermint shrimp are alive, at least 4 of them are, and it seems like the aiptasia has ceased growing and some are smaller. But I think we screwed up by putting the peppermint shrimp in there first, because I am suspecting they quickly made dinner of the Berghia

The Berghia were so tiny; I don't know anywhere to get them bigger so that maybe the shrimp wouldn't eat them.

Bill, where did you get yours?

 

[SnMan]

Well, don't get me started. If anything can go wrong it will. I have been led to believe that they will only eat Aiptasia so once they are gone the Berghia will die since they will eat nothing else. I have ordered 3 sets. The first and 3rd set were from the Salty Underground and the 2nd batch was from Berghia.net. I ordered 8, 6+1free, and then 8. They were all roughly the same size (very small!) except that 1 of the 8 from both the 1st and 3rd set were a little bit bigger. I tried to breed the first set by keeping them in a 2.5g and feeding them small Aiptasia covered rocks but eventually I placed the 3 surving ones in the main tank after 1 month. None of the eggs hatched even though I had hundreds of them. So I figured that I would increase the gene pool and ordered from Berghia.net. This time I introduced them directly into the main tank and over looked a few important details. Let's not go there, so anyway I wasn't sure how many survived. The packaging is a little different so I decided to order the 3rd set from Salty again. Within days of putting the 3rd batch in the tank I started to see them regularly. I saw 7 at once one day and I know that 3 were from the first set due to their huge size. They were now 3 months old and over 1.25" long! You can't miss them and when they decide to eat an Aiptasia it is something to whitness! I do have survivors from all three sets though. I have many many pictures since they are facinating to watch. I do have thousands of Aiptasia and the Berghia are focusing on just 4 rocks at the moment.

 

[deepsea43]

thats awsome and the thread you stole from me i didnt care that you took it and also i wasnt kidding i have a 10 gallon tank and i must have at least 25 of those little boogers.

 

[SnMan]

If I can get these to breed then I will pull two out for you. If not them maybe when they are almost done in my tank I will capture some for you to square us up. I actually pulled a bunch of little Aiptasia out and placed them in a small tank so that when the Berghia are out of food in the main tank I might be able to save some of them.

 

[SnMan]

That doesn't sound right. What I meant to say is that once they are done in my tank maybe I can capture a few before they starve to death and if I can then I will give you some to clean up your 10g.

 

[mpwolken]

What is the effect of Berghia on zoanthids or other species of anemone? Links would be useful.

 

[SeanM]

What is the effect of Berghia on zoanthids or other species of anemone? Links would be useful.

http://www.breedersregistry.org/Reprints/azaa/1996/berghia_azaa.htm

There is no effect on zoos or other anemones, the only thing a berghia eats is aiptasia.

I bought 8 from salty underground in Dec '05 to rid my then 90 of the aiptasia. Took about 3-4 months for them to rid the tank. The only downside, and it may be unrelated, I noticed my corals were stressed around the time the berghia may have been dying. I have no proof, just a hunch that the berghia die off may have released something in the water that I couldn't test. A couple water changes later and everything looked to be back to normal. At the time nitrites - 0, nitrates - <5, ammonia -0.

 

[lilred1995vette]

nice

Nice to see the pics up! I would love to see one of them in action after one of the aneomes?

 

[deepsea43]

If I can get these to breed then I will pull two out for you. If not them maybe when they are almost done in my tank I will capture some for you to square us up. I actually pulled a bunch of little Aiptasia out and placed them in a small tank so that when the Berghia are out of food in the main tank I might be able to save some of them.

hey thanks for the offer

 

[SnMan]

Great news! This morning I spotted my first coil of eggs in the main tank! I am hoping that they will hatch and be just the beginning of my colony. If I start to see small ones in a month or so then I will know for sure that the colony has started and I will be able to try catching some for give aways.

SeanM, Thanks for the heads up. I will try to remember to watch the tank closely when the Aiptasia are gone to see if the dead Berghia cause any ill affects. I only have a small amount of zoa in there and the Aiptasia are keeping them from really opening up so it might be hard to tell.

 

[SnMan]

Lilred1995vette, I think that Berghia.net or Salty Underground might have a video clip for you to watch.

 

[SnMan]

Snail with a hitchhiker

You know the Aiptasia are bad when the snails can't even get away from them...

 

[deepsea43]

wow thats strange

 

[AquaNerd]

wow thats strange

i've seen stranger...i even think i've seen zoas on snail before.

 

[SnMan]

Zoas on snail = good thing
Aiptasia on snail = bad thing

I can't believe that 4 or 5 years ago when the first one showed up that I thought it was cool. I was brand new to reefing and having stuff grow I thought was a good thing...

 

[SnMan]

Egg coils

Here is an update on my attempt to rid the tank of aiptasia. THe berghia have migrated to the other end of the tank and it appears that I am starting to get good egg coils.

 

[SnMan]

More eggs and a shot of the big one

The Berghia from my last post which was on the glass with the eggs in the pouch laid them on a rock at the other end of the tank. I can't get a good picture but I now have 3 egg coils that I can see. This morning this big guy was out finishing off an aiptasia entree. I believe that he is the big guy from my first set. If he isn't then there is an even bigger one in there. I wish I could post the whole picture so you could see the real size. My bubble algae needs to be in a circus it is so big... The aiptasia in front of him in picture two has shrunken down to half it's size due to it being stung by the Berghia. You can see the tenticles in picture 1 before it was stung.

 

[aha24]

I want to get some but I am afrade that my 1 pepermint shrimp would eat them