Wednesday, December 13, 2006

Welcome


One of the worst battles I've faced in maintaining a coral reef tank is the invasion of the nasty pest "glass" anemone, a.k.a. Aiptasia. Once they get into a tank (I assume on some live rock or other hitchhiker means) they start enjoying the perfectly balanced water and lighting conditions you made for your corals / fish. Steven Pro refers to Aiptasia as the "tough little Dandelion of the aquarium hobby." And that they are, an invasive weed.

I've tried all sorts of methods, most involved injecting various liquids into each Aiptasia. But my 40 gallon tank has hundreds, if not thousands, and this task seemed only to make the population grow (most likely due to reproduction by fragmentation of the small pieces of Aiptasia that missed the siphon of my vacuum during the process).

So in comes the Messiah - I hope - the Berghia Nudibranch (a.k.a. Berghia Verrucicornis). These expensive, tiny little slugs eat only Aiptasia. I purchased mine from Lisa and Kevin, at Salty Underground. If you look to the left of the Berghia in this photo, you can see the spiral egg typical of the Berghia.

This Blog will be a photo journal of their work.

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