Hi RC!
Just though I would share and spread some knowledge about an unfortunate experience last night. Even though the title pretty much says it all, I will divulge a few details.
I had 5 peps in my ~100 gallon reef system which generally all liked to congregate in a corner near my powerhead. Now, yesterday during a water change I had all my pumps and return off so the water was as calm as before the storm. If anyone has ever noticed, when the water column stops lots of little critters start to wander around and including my peps.
So mid bucketful of water that was being dumped into my sump I stopped and watched one pep start feeling the coral with his antennae then jumped on it like a piece of spectrum pellets. I watched stunned for a second trying to convince myself that maybe he was just cleaning some detritus or junk on the hammers skeleton. Nope, I started seeing little pieces of purple and green get shoved into his greedy little beady eyed face. I luckily had a net on hand and quickly caught the little devil who was promptly banished to my sump.
So after things settle and I get over my shock and disgust I continue the water change, but now I am keeping a watchful eye on the other peps. After a quick trip to another room for a full RO/DI bucket of water I witnessed ANOTHER shrimp (the smallest pep even) doing his damage to the same Hammer coral head. I could actually hear this shrimp laughing, so this time I banished their entire colony like a bunch of lepers. They now get to battle for life in a sump full of other creatures that belong in a Doom game.
TLDR: peppermint shrimp will eat your corals and laugh as they do it.
I've read a couple posts about this now, and it does seem that they like Hammer Corals (Euphyllia). Never had a problem with this before, and kept peps for many years in different systems but I think I'll stick with my fire shrimp or scarlet cleaner...sheesh even my nasty pistol shrimp who has a snail graveyard around his tunnel exits are preferable over that. They did real damage fast too, It looks like the Hammer should recover but might loose the head.
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Just though I would share and spread some knowledge about an unfortunate experience last night. Even though the title pretty much says it all, I will divulge a few details.
I had 5 peps in my ~100 gallon reef system which generally all liked to congregate in a corner near my powerhead. Now, yesterday during a water change I had all my pumps and return off so the water was as calm as before the storm. If anyone has ever noticed, when the water column stops lots of little critters start to wander around and including my peps.
So mid bucketful of water that was being dumped into my sump I stopped and watched one pep start feeling the coral with his antennae then jumped on it like a piece of spectrum pellets. I watched stunned for a second trying to convince myself that maybe he was just cleaning some detritus or junk on the hammers skeleton. Nope, I started seeing little pieces of purple and green get shoved into his greedy little beady eyed face. I luckily had a net on hand and quickly caught the little devil who was promptly banished to my sump.
So after things settle and I get over my shock and disgust I continue the water change, but now I am keeping a watchful eye on the other peps. After a quick trip to another room for a full RO/DI bucket of water I witnessed ANOTHER shrimp (the smallest pep even) doing his damage to the same Hammer coral head. I could actually hear this shrimp laughing, so this time I banished their entire colony like a bunch of lepers. They now get to battle for life in a sump full of other creatures that belong in a Doom game.
TLDR: peppermint shrimp will eat your corals and laugh as they do it.
I've read a couple posts about this now, and it does seem that they like Hammer Corals (Euphyllia). Never had a problem with this before, and kept peps for many years in different systems but I think I'll stick with my fire shrimp or scarlet cleaner...sheesh even my nasty pistol shrimp who has a snail graveyard around his tunnel exits are preferable over that. They did real damage fast too, It looks like the Hammer should recover but might loose the head.
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