Substrate options

[PaulTys]

Do they require any particular substrate? and will they bury in fine sand or mud in a deep sand bed?

[lucycat]

when i got mine they just go in the holes in the live rock and come out and eat the aiptasia from the roots.it is amazing how quickly they get to work and how satisfying it is to watch them eating the aiptasia.they ate all mine and i havent got any now and its been a year.

[MandiW]

Hi
They hunt out aips and will go where the aips are, they will cross sand to eat them, they will eat the ones in the sand. If they are burried in the sand they will eat from the top. They won't burrow in the sand but they will eat all aips wherever they are. As they only eat aips they WILL eat them all and not touch anything else.
Because thats all they eat it does make them pretty much the best way to erradicate aips as all other natural options will eat other things and given half a chance will eat other things, where as berghia won't if there isn't aips they starve, hence why we will offer to buy back if you have berghia from us so that what we breed isn't left to starve to death. We don't resell any that come back they live out the rest of their naturally short lives in one of our tanks.
They are not an overnight solution and will take a little time, but as long as you stock enough berghia for the amount of aips you have, as you have to have enough berghia so that they can consume aips faster than the aips can spawn more, they will clear the tank. If you don't put enough in it will look like they are not working, they will be eating the aips accept the aips are probably spawning faster than they can eat them.
I will get a video of some eating an aip soon as soon as I get chance as it is good to see.
Hope this helps.
Mandi

[PaulTys]

My concern is that we have a system with a deep sand bed with very very fine substrate. I dont want the slugs burying into the sand and disturbing the bed so if they dont bury then that is good.

Just out of interest, how do you keep enough aips to keep breeding and feeding slugs, including the returned ones? Do you have a separate aiptasia production unit where you just feed lots of artemia and small particulates to encourage massive growth?

[MandiW]

Hi

They don't bury they are only little nudis and just hunt out and eat aips thats all.

I am afraid questions like your last one we are asked all the time, and you'd be supprised the amount of aips you need to sustain breeding berghia, its massive.

[lucycat]

i know my berghia ate all mine and some one else i know is trying to source aiptasia as she is running out and she really likes the berghia and they have bred they actually went up the tube from her sump into the display tank when they ran out of aiptasia down there.
apart from that welcome to the salty box Mandi.
also do you have Berghia in stock at the moment?.

[MandiW]

Hi Lucycat
Thank you for your welcome.
The berghia are cute little things, we had some that ate majanos to and wow what a pretty colour they went.
The problem with berghia is that you not only have to get breeding them right but you also have to keep massive amounts of aips, we have large dedicated tanks for the aips.

We have hundreds in our grow out tanks at the moment but they are selling out very fast the first batch to come ready next is sold out the batch behind that is nearly sold out as well. So we are advising anyone that wants some to email us and we can take an order via email and then you will be guaranteed berghia in order that payments are received. Its the only way we can work it.

We were considering turning to trade only but so many customers begged and pleaded so we are keeping to supplying hobbyists direct. They will work out cheaper for the hobbyist to buy direct from us.

Again thanks for the welcome, will get some pics of the horses in the seahorse section over the weekend.
Mandi