Beware of the Peppermint Shrimp

[cur10u5g30rg3]

Thought I would share an experience I had with my reef tank.

I had to quarantine my fish due to ich. This includes two clownfish that had been hosting three large colonies of frogspawn. As part of my cleanup crew I have 3 peppermint shrimp. These shrimp have been model citizen for almost a year now. About Wednesday one of the frog spawn colonies started to loose it's tissue. It started at the bottom on one side of the colony so I assumed that I had placed the colony to close to one of the other colonies when I chasing fish last weekend. After losing most of the colony I pulled it out for a dip to see if that would help save it. Afterwards I split it apart only keeping the heads that were still living. Meanwhile I was staring into the tank trying to come up with culprits and noticed that one peppermint was picking at one of the other colonies. I have since removed 2 of 3 shrimp and will hopefully get the other before the night is over. I guess the clowns who would attack me for going near any of those frogspawn colonies were keeping the shrimp in line. Anyhow I thought I would share this experience. Fortunately, the colonies the shrimp attacked first was the dullest and smallest of the three and I still have a few heads left.

 

[eg8r210]

That sucks. I don't see my peppermint shrimp too often but leave him in there to keep the aiptasia at bay. One thing I hated about them is that they steal food from the corals. If they see food then they just keep digging till they get it. I hated them.

 

[FragsFragsFrags]

Mine are good at aptasia control but recently one went ham on my new fungia plate. Looked bad in just 24 hours moved it to my nano under MHs fed some Cyclopes and in a week looks better that the day I got it.

 

[arnoldrew]

I have had a few large frogspawns as well as 4 peppermint shrimp in my tank for about 6 months now. This morning when I woke up really early I noticed weird looking stuff floating around my tank. It glowed in the moon lights just like most of my coral. I finally spotted one of my peppermints ripping apart and chowing down on one of my heads of frogspawn! Another head looked chewed on as well. These heads were perfectly healthy and expanded yesterday. I'm going to try to catch the shrimp and pop them in my other tank. Does this mean I have camel shrimp or something instead of peppermint?

 

[cur10u5g30rg3]

Mine are peppermints. They just didn't have the clowns anymore to deter them

 

[Swirlygig]

I have seen them eat a colony of palys. they are great for aiptasia though! sentinel bomb if u want them dead.

 

[Lilmatty5dimes]

i got 5 peppermints to try and eat aiptasia and they never touched it. had to get a file fish and in 2 days all the aiptasia was gone.

 

[CoralOfDuty]

beware of that filefish matty. mine took out all my aiptasia and then ate up 2 sets of brand new acans. i thought id try a peppermint shrimp but it seems as though its going to be the same problem.

 

[nitr8]

Wow, mine have always been model citizens. Guess I know who to accuse if anything happens to my frogspawn.

 

[Lilmatty5dimes]

beware of that filefish matty. mine took out all my aiptasia and then ate up 2 sets of brand new acans. i thought id try a peppermint shrimp but it seems as though its going to be the same problem.

thanks. i already brought him back. he was a rental. lol had him take care of the problem in 2 days. didn't want to chance anymore than that in case i didn't have anymore aiptasia left.

 

[Swirlygig]

I had a filefish for almost 2yrs with no issues...then i killed him with a salinity spike...ugh.

He never touched coral or aiptasia though...go figure.

Peppermints are find, just keep an eye on them. You can always catch them with an inverted coke bottle. I had 7 of them annihilate my tank full of aiptasia and never touched any corals.

 

[Swirlygig]

Thought I would share an experience I had with my reef tank.

I had to quarantine my fish due to ich. This includes two clownfish that had been hosting three large colonies of frogspawn. As part of my cleanup crew I have 3 peppermint shrimp. These shrimp have been model citizen for almost a year now. About Wednesday one of the frog spawn colonies started to loose it's tissue. It started at the bottom on one side of the colony so I assumed that I had placed the colony to close to one of the other colonies when I chasing fish last weekend. After losing most of the colony I pulled it out for a dip to see if that would help save it. Afterwards I split it apart only keeping the heads that were still living. Meanwhile I was staring into the tank trying to come up with culprits and noticed that one peppermint was picking at one of the other colonies. I have since removed 2 of 3 shrimp and will hopefully get the other before the night is over. I guess the clowns who would attack me for going near any of those frogspawn colonies were keeping the shrimp in line. Anyhow I thought I would share this experience. Fortunately, the colonies the shrimp attacked first was the dullest and smallest of the three and I still have a few heads left.

Are you sure there wasn't something wrong with the frogspawn that made it want to snack on it? did getting rid of the shrimp fix the issue?

 

[cur10u5g30rg3]

Yeah the frogspawn was fine , they moved onto the next one when I removed the first frogspawn. Then I removed the shrimp and the frogspawn was fine. Lost most of it before I removed the shrimp.

 

[Sky_Shark]

Peppermint shrimp can be pretty hit or miss when it comes to eating coral. Doesn't mean you have a camel if it eats coral. I had a few that were fine with everything in the tank and then annihilated the first frogspawn I added.