Let's talk Peppermint Shrimp

[gmong]

From my experience the ones with the stripes didn't eat aptasia and have beat up on my corals. I once woke up in the middle of the night and it looked like Edward scissorhands cutting hair on a hammer coral. I currently have 3 of the ones with patterns and as far as I know they haven't done anything but eat aptasia and hangout behind the rocks.

 

[budgt.media]

Also a little worried about my Orchid Dottyback. I watched it viciously attack my Cortez Hermit the other day when it wandered too close to it's den. No damage to the crab luckily. Looked like it was trying to tear it out of its shell though lol. Not sure a shrimp could stand up to that kind of punishment.

I dropped a peppermint shrimp in last week and it had the unfortunate luck of landing directly in front of my dottybacks den. Killed the shrimp within 2 minutes of adding it to the tank.

 

[Aqua Ultraviolet]

So I have been combing the the threads about Peppermint Shrimp in general and 90% of what I am reading is that they can easily turn on your corals, and often times do.

I also read that there are several species of peppermint shrimp and some are far less inclined to do so.

To the crux of my thread, what peppermint shrimp are bad, which are good, and are any peppermint shrimp worth the risk?

Asking because they have these at my local Petco for a sweet deal and I could use some CC that targets meaty detritus in the rocks, but not at the risk of my corals.

Sorry best pic I could get. Labeled Lysmata wurdemanni, but who knows?

Great topic, and the confusion around peppermint shrimp is very real. Here is the breakdown.
Lysmata wurdemanni is actually a species complex, not a single species. That means there are several nearly identical looking shrimp sold under that one name, and even marine biologists need genetic testing to tell them apart. This is exactly why you see wildly mixed reports online. Someone with a well behaved specimen swears by them while someone else got a coral picker from the same complex.
The real culprit behind most of the horror stories is often mistaken identity with camel shrimp, specifically Rhynchocinetes durbanensis. Camel shrimp have a noticeably humped back, bolder red banding, and bigger eyes. They get lumped into the peppermint shrimp category at some fish stores and are far more likely to pick at coral polyps, especially zoanthids and LPS.

Based on your photo, that looks like a true peppermint shrimp, not a camel shrimp. The fine striping and slender body match.

As for whether they are worth the risk, most keepers find true peppermint shrimp reef safe with reasonable caution. A few things that reduce risk considerably include keeping them well fed with meaty foods like mysis so they are not driven to forage on coral tissue, avoiding overstocking them since hunger increases opportunistic behavior, and watching new additions closely for the first few weeks after introduction.
Given the Petco deal, I would grab one or two, watch behavior closely, and remove immediately if you see any coral picking. Most people never have an issue, but individual temperament does vary.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

I've said is before I'll say it again, try to buy your peppermint shrimp from a breeder then you will get exact;y what you want, if you buy from a LFS then you take a chance. The difference between peppermint shrimp and others is too subtle for most to notice, talking about the curvature of the spine, how black the tail is, etc....