will peppermint shrimp eat hydroids or only aptasia?

Kinetic

Active member
will peppermint shrimp eat hydriods? I have a bit of them in my tank that are going a bit crazy.

if anyone has one that I can borrow (sounds like a tool) let me know!

thanks =)
 
i have four peppermint shrimp for a few weeks now and a bunch of aptasia but it doesn't seem like they are eating the aptasia. i've seen their molted skeletons and i see them around the tank but i don't see them eating any aptasia. what are hydroids?
 
I don't think they do. The did't eat the ones in my tank, but they did wipe out the aptasia.

Of course there are many species of hydroid.
 
They will eat many things, and not all of them things we would want. They also have been known to wipe out zoas, usually the long yellow polyped ones. As for aiptasia, you need to be sure they are the Atlantic peppermints and not the Pacific ones. Just find out where they were collected from.

But to answer the specific question, I have not seen peppermints eat any hydroids other than aiptasia (which is of course a hydroid) :)
 
(quote)"you need to be sure they are the Atlantic peppermints and not the Pacific ones."
This is very important, there are a couple species that look like pepermints
 
My peppermint shrimp ate all of my aptasia , but not majanos. The other shrimp that looks like a peppermint shrimp is commonly called the camel shrimp. It has a more humped back and the white markings are more apparent than on the peppermint.
 
At the April 8 BAR meeting, someone (Steve) asked me about pep shrimps eating aiptasia. I said I didn't know, but my tank was pretty infested. So I went to Atlantis Aquarium (where they had a good deal on them, 3 shrimps for $19...too bad I got home (20 miles later) to find only 2 shrimps in the bag! Grrrrr !!! :mad: !! But I digress)... Anyway, I put them in my quarantine tank, that had aiptasia all over it ... and in a few days, I was amazed to find that they DID eat the aiptasia! :eek:

I'm going to bring them into work to help eat the aiptasia in an office tank, then they will go to work on my main tank, which is apparently an aiptasia farm now.

So hydroids, I dunno. Aiptasia, if you are lucky, then yes.

V
 
tie them to fishing lines and pull them out when done! =) j/k

so aside from aptasia, anyone know any other ways to battle hydroids?
 
well, I can catch them in the small quarantine tank that they are running around in. Not sure of the big office tank though. Once they are done in the quarantine tanks, they'll likely go to the home tank.

V
 
Easier to leave the shrimp in a rock quarantine tank, and rotate your aiptasia rocks through the shrimp tank. Well, unless you have to disassemble your aquascaping to get to the rock.
 
joes juice worked great for me, i had 2 mojano type anenomes that i used joes juice on and i havent had any since
 
Whatever species of aiptasia I have seems to "die" with Joes Juice then at the site of it's death, 5 new ones appear!

It's like "The Sorceror's Apprentice"! Joe's seems to be Zombie juice on mine.

V
 
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