Peppermint shrimp eating my acans...HELP!!!
- Thread starter Bofa
- Start date
I have found that there are two species of peppermint shrimp found in our hobby. There is no quick way to distinguish them other then from where they are collected. The ones that come from the gulf of mexico will eat aptasia, corals, and anything else they can scavenge. I learned the hard way in that I bought five for my 30 gal, for aptasia contral, and over the next couple days I noticed my acans, fungia, hammer coral, and blastos slowly receding and had tissue removed. Three out of the five shrimp were eating my corals and over the next couple of days I was able to net them out. Bottom line they are not reef safe, they are scavengers and without food all the time they will find something tasty that cost you money.
JoeCreature
New member
I collect peppermints from SE North Carolina and have never had any problems. I do keep them very thinly dispersed 1 per 50 gallons. (actually they did it themselves but I take the credit) I have seen them picking food from LPS but never harmed any of my hammer, frogspawn, or torch. They are kinda dumb though. Condylactis got two before the survivor wised up.
I had four of the true peppermints (not camelbacks), and they took down one of my frogspawns. I saw them at work tearing the sweepers and munching them, stunned and in disbelief. They're reef safe, right? Wrong. At least as far as that coral was concerned (they didn't mess with anything else as far as I could tell). They had to go.
I took a clean spaghetti sauce jar, put some food and a damaged frogspawn head at the end, and laid it on the sand. As soon as one entered, I reached in with the lid and screwed it on, lifted out the jar, and voila the little punk was evicted. I repeated and got three out. The fourth and smallest vacillated, and I urged him on to fulfill his destiny, but he did not enter the jar. He's still in the tank but not bothering anything.
They are more shy and secretive if alone or spread out. In numbers, mine behaved differently and were less shy. They never did clean any of the fish, but they mowed down the aiptasia and were able scavengers.
Evict them. Your acan is worth way more than they are. Get them out and give them away to someone who knows what they're getting and is fine with their proclivity.
I took a clean spaghetti sauce jar, put some food and a damaged frogspawn head at the end, and laid it on the sand. As soon as one entered, I reached in with the lid and screwed it on, lifted out the jar, and voila the little punk was evicted. I repeated and got three out. The fourth and smallest vacillated, and I urged him on to fulfill his destiny, but he did not enter the jar. He's still in the tank but not bothering anything.
They are more shy and secretive if alone or spread out. In numbers, mine behaved differently and were less shy. They never did clean any of the fish, but they mowed down the aiptasia and were able scavengers.
Evict them. Your acan is worth way more than they are. Get them out and give them away to someone who knows what they're getting and is fine with their proclivity.
nanoguy
Premium Member
I purchased a couple to control an aptasia problem I was having. They cleared out any visible ones that I had within a couple of weeks. After that, they started to munch on my acans, yumas, and frogspawn. All the corals were healthy too so they were not eating just dead tissue.
Pepermint Shrimp Lystmata wurdemani, will eat acans, zoanthus and micromussa, in my experience. They are not completely reef safe. I have watched them do it . No it wasn't dead tissue either. they certainly feed on aiptasia anemones and move on to other livestock as the mood strikes. Camel shrimp , ryhynchocinetes spp. are much worse.
I have seen peppermints first hand eating coral! So they are not truly reef safe, if you feed them enough they don't seem to bother the corals, but if you are feeding less to combat algae, then they get optimistic, and eat just about anything.
(I watched them eat frogspawn, pocilopora, sun coral, and acans)
(I watched them eat frogspawn, pocilopora, sun coral, and acans)
No they are not, we know the diff between camelbacks and peps. They WILL reach inside LPS to snag food, sometimes killing them. I have never seen them eat corals myself, but I have seen they kill a couple of my LPS by ripping them open for food. I know they are advertised as reef safe but in reality they are not.
VitalApparatus
New member
I just caught my 3 peppermint hounding the new fungia I got yesturday.I have recently reduced feeding amounts so I guess they were going for it...I netted them and banished to sump.
why is it so hard for anyone to believe a shrimp that eats aptasia could not turn to coral when their food source is gone. seems natural to me.
personally i just had one attack a small frog spawn 2 nights ago.
i bought 2 of them about 4 weeks ago to deal with a small aptasia problem that's been getting worse. to to my delight they cleared all them out in 2 weeks.
since i have returned one to my lfs and planned on keeping one. well a couple nights ago something ate most of a small frog spawn i had. now i didn't actually see the pep doing it but i know my tank well.
he will be going back shortly. :hmm2:
personally i just had one attack a small frog spawn 2 nights ago.
i bought 2 of them about 4 weeks ago to deal with a small aptasia problem that's been getting worse. to to my delight they cleared all them out in 2 weeks.
since i have returned one to my lfs and planned on keeping one. well a couple nights ago something ate most of a small frog spawn i had. now i didn't actually see the pep doing it but i know my tank well.
he will be going back shortly. :hmm2:
elegance coral
They call me EC
Never trust anything that wares its skeleton on the outside.
yep -i concur - i got my first acan and i watched my peppermint shrimp eat two of the polyps. I have a gonoporia that is has not been doing well for a while now, and I bet the peppermint shrimp is helping it die. I am going shrimping today!! Thank you reef central for confirming what I suspected!
