pep shrimp eating coral?

[M88A2]

recently i have reduced feeding in my tank to control nitrates. I had 2 heads of candycane coral that were doing great until recently. today i found what look like rips in the candycane and they were not anywhere near as fluffy. i suspect the pep shrimp might be snacking on it because of my reduced feeding? is this probable?

 

[Reefer577]

Maybe, it might just be picking at it, which shrimp can do sometimes. If you're worried about your shrimp, just take a little pellet food and drop it in front of him. You don't need much to keep a shrimp happy.

 

[Guygettnby]

me and some friends have all had peppermint shrimp eat some LPS like hammer, frogspawm or a candy cane. i have also had a peppermint shrimp snack on a GBTA. i dont keep them in my tanks anymore and dont recomend them to anybody. some people have had good luck with them and others have not. if you do some searching you will see very mixed reviews on them.

 

[mscarpena]

NOt uncommon. That is why they are banned from my aquariums forever.

 

[M88A2]

dang, they were doing so good for 3 months too. they cleaned my tank of my aiptasia problem. maybe i'll start with the once a day feeding to keep them happy again

 

[jc-reef]

me and some friends have all had peppermint shrimp eat some LPS like hammer, frogspawm or a candy cane. i have also had a peppermint shrimp snack on a GBTA. i dont keep them in my tanks anymore and dont recomend them to anybody. some people have had good luck with them and others have not. if you do some searching you will see very mixed reviews on them.

dang, they were doing so good for 3 months too. they cleaned my tank of my aiptasia problem. maybe i'll start with the once a day feeding to keep them happy again

Like OP I too got several peppermints to clean up my new tank of small glass anenome (aiptasia) that popped up during the cycle. They did a great job of riding the pests in the order of 2 days and after a few months after letting the tank mature a bit, I stocked with a nice branching hammer coral that was given to me and they pounced on it...no matter how much I fed them. After about 2 weeks of traps, I finally caught them (8) and banned them to the sump & LFS. You may hear both sides of this debate (reef safe or not) but once they get a taste for LPS, nothing will stop them....time to go.

So..IMO, the peppermint shrimp are a good solution to add to a new tank with fresh LF to eat up the unwanted pest that may pop up the first few months of cycling/maturing, after that they should be removed.

 

[Faerl]

Haven't seen them go after corals but they'll eat feather dusters quickly enough.

 

[M88A2]

well, i started feeding daily again. not as much as i used to but still daily. the candycany seem to have recovered very quick. much of the skel. was showing but 2 days after i started feeding daily the meat is semi puffy again and the skel. is no longer showing

 

[tahoe61]

Pest Peppermint shrimp

Pest Peppermint shrimp

Feed all you want, once they take a likeing to, say all my mini anemones they will continue their bad behaviours. I would buy dry rock before I ever had to use peppermint shrimp to kill aiptasia, again.:mixed:

 

[graysmurf]

very interesting, didnt know this of peppermints. have kept them before with no problems