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Aiptasia are getting to me argh!

Well, I've still got a bunch of Aiptasia-X which cost a pretty penny, so I'll keep trying it. The thing I like about it is that it sticks to the aiptasia instead of falling/floating onto other corals. But a lot of the aiptasias seem able to recover from the assault.

If worse comes to worst, I'll try NaOH. I found that you can get it on Amazon (Rooto on poiund, about $4 with $5 shipping) or EBay (Can get about 2 pounds of it for about $4 + $11 shipping or like 4 pounds for $7 and $13 shipping) in anycase, less than $20 which is a lot cheaper than Aiptasia-X for the amount you get. Well, I'll try local Mexican grocery stores first. I dunno how Gresham keeps finding cal and Mrs Wages, I can't find the stuff (except at Walmart when it's pickle season)!!

The NaOH just sounds a lot scarier to use.

As a bonus, I guess with aiptasia-x/kalk/joe's (all basically the same stuff I suppose) if the aiptasias come back to life, you can torture them over and over again....mwahahahaha!

V
 
I live near Watsonville :)

Lye is something to be cautious with, that is for sure.
 
Just watch fight club... it's nasty nasty stuff. :) Just make sure to have a bottle of vinegar with the top off near by in case of emergency.

That said, as mentioned quite a few aiptasia are in "unreachable" locations, and I really have a hard time believing that you simply have to touch the aiptasia with it and it'll die for good.
 
Mike, I hear you. These "Miracle Aiptasia Killers" seem to have great reviews, but no follow up like "Oh, it's been 2 weeks and they all came back".

I actually wouldn't mind having some lye to clean the bathroom sink. And I think if you ever want to regenerate your DI resin, you'd need it :p

V
 
Chemistry fun...

NaOH solutions will dissolve aluminum and make hydrogen gas.

So keep your lye away from aluminum containers etc.

Unless you you're trying on purpose to make leaky containers of corrosive, flammable, explosive mixtures.
 
Mr. Ugly said:
Chemistry fun...

NaOH solutions will dissolve aluminum and make hydrogen gas.

So keep your lye away from aluminum containers etc.

Unless you you're trying on purpose to make leaky containers of corrosive, flammable, explosive mixtures.
Click to expand...
which btw, is a fun way to make hydrogen balloons....and of course, I highly recommend not doing it ;)
 
Peppermints have always worked for me.

I recently tried some Aiptasia X and was less than impressed. It seems really expensive for what looks like white diarrhea.

I still need a peppermint though. Never in my experience have i ever seen a tank with only one Aiptasia in it. You can only treat what you can see, right?

side note: what's the plural for Aiptasia?
 
Gomer said:
which btw, is a fun way to make hydrogen balloons....and of course, I highly recommend not doing it ;)
Click to expand...
in a chem lab in collage we used the hydrogen and soapy water to blow bubbles then the prof threw a match at them :)
 
If you use lye, phosphorus and soapy water, the bubbles will spontaneously ignite when they pop. That way you don't have to waste matches :D
 
Gomer said:
which btw, is a fun way to make hydrogen balloons....and of course, I highly recommend not doing it ;)
Click to expand...

If you really don't want to have fun, then don't make chlorine gas from bleach and vinegar.

And especially don't combine the contents of the hydrogen balloon and the chlorine balloon and expose the mixture to sunlight or UV.

That would be much too fun, and should never be attempted.

:D
 
This twisted and off-topic thread reminds me of one day in high school when my friend and I were lingering in the chem lab when the teacher decided she was going to clean out the sinks ... with DRANO. So I don't know how many hundreds of chemicals had been tossed in the dozens of sinks, but adding Drano to whatever was in there is ... not good. We quickly left the room as the air started to "taste like burning"

V
 
Not likely that there were residual chemicals in the drain other than a little mercury.

Probably just a ton of Drano and not a whole lot of water. The heat aerosolized the caustic mixture.

I showed some science club guys the potassium chlorate and sugar reaction.

I wasn't in their club but heard about some of their fun afterwards.

On one Saturday club meeting, they decided to pack a soda can full of the mixture and lit it off with a magnesium wick.

This was in the courtyard just outside of the chemistry room.

The explosion was so loud that police showed up at the high school. Everybody got nothing more than a stern lecture because the officer was a former student of the chem teacher :D
 
Another cool trick was to dissolve phosphorus in carbon disulfide, pour it inside someone's book, and close it up.

When the person opens the book, the solvent evaporates, and the book catches on fire spontaneously :D

Not that I've ever done that...
 
You all had way too much fun in school. I best we ever got was the soda and mentos combo in class. I guess my teacher was affraid too many people would try something stupid and blow an arm off or something.
 
Bringing this thread back to life because aiptasia is starting to get outta hand in my tank. I've tried aiptasia x but it's a temporary fix. They just come back. I have 3 peppermint shrimp in my 100 gallon and I don't see any difference. Saw one of those fools in my sump. I'm gonna assume he didn't like being upstairs and wanted to be downstairs just like my starfish. :) Not sure if I need more of these guys or what. Looking for a cost effective way to kill these guys. Lemon juice? Boiling water?
 
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