Do peps really eat aiptasia?!

[Reeferdood]

+2! nice research on this!

Nice post and info! :)

 

[foxhuntr]

I have a copperband butterfly in my reef tank, I have heard good and bad about this(depends on the fish) but the little guy does his job...He cleared my tank of aptasia and then I move him to another tank when he was finished. Wasnt going to tempt him with my acans, etc. Good luck....also I have heard of berghia nudibranches taking care of them as well.
Scott

 

[TriMax]

So this is what I have. I can see two so far. I probably have more.



So what to do.

Shrimp?
Kalk paste injected?
Lemon Juice injected?

????

 

[Reeferdood]

You can also pluck them off the rock with tweezers, that one is pretty big so you should not have any problems grabbin that lil sucker!

 

[iceman0124]

the problem with picking is the remains grow back....scraping the remains is even worse as every little piece will likely grow and sread all over. Best method is chipping off a nic chunk of the rock that houses it, even with the peps, if the aip is anchored deep in a rock, it'll only eat what it can reach.

 

[DaveA]

the problem with picking is the remains grow back....scraping the remains is even worse as every little piece will likely grow and sread all over. Best method is chipping off a nic chunk of the rock that houses it, even with the peps, if the aip is anchored deep in a rock, it'll only eat what it can reach.

+1. Don't pick them off.

 

[Harry_Y]

So this is what I have. I can see two so far. I probably have more.



So what to do.

Shrimp?
Kalk paste injected?
Lemon Juice injected?

????

I'd try the shrimp first

 

[Mantis]

I know this is a pretty old post. But my peppermint shrimp died a month ago. And now I see about 5 aiptasia babies. Just picked this guy up at the LFS. He looks like A, D, or E. But I cannot tell. What do you guys think?

Hope it works. I will post the results tomorrow, hopefully good news.

 

[DaveA]

He looks like A, D, or E.

What does "A, D, or E" mean?

 

[Paul_N]

What does "A, D, or E" mean?

Here ya go, a page back...:bigsmile:

Worked for me, bought one Peppermint and he ate all my aiptasia - about 5 or 6 of them. A couple were fairly sizable and I figured they were too big for him but he got them anyways, took him two days. I think it's important to get the right species of peppermint as to if they will eat them or not, Lysmata Wurdemanni is the one you want.
This image helped when I went to the LFS..
They are:
(A) Lysmata wurdemanni (Gibbes).
(B) Lysmata rathbunae Chace.
(C) Lysmata ankeri new species.
(D) Lysmata boggessi new species.
(E) Lysmata pederseni new species.
(F) Lysmata bahia new species.

 

[Reef@holic]

I had a bunch of rock full of aptasia, I put in 3 peppermint shrimp and they ate all of the aptasia within a week and after about 3 months now they have not bothered anything else in my tank including zoas!

 

[Hyprviperx]

mine have never touched the stuff but for that matter i feed my tank regularly so they may not be hungry, also ive read they will not go after any aptasia larger than a button because the risks outweigh the benefits for them