peppermint shrimp, oh how i hate thee

butts182 · Mar 2, 2011

after having a few of my chalices and acans terrorized by peppermint shrimps, i have decided never to put them in my tank and instead go with the zapper. do you have problems with peps eating your corals?

Captain Nemo · Mar 2, 2011

No, I have never had any problem what so ever from my peppermint, he just eats the aiptasia and is happy!

MadReefer1 · Mar 2, 2011

I had some peps take out all my acans before i could get them out.................. Never Again will i ever even think about getting them again unless im going fishing.

skinz78 · Mar 2, 2011

I've had them pick at clams.

BigFeesh · Mar 2, 2011

Mine is the devil he will come and attack my hand while cleaning my tank and steal food from corals !

nixer · Mar 3, 2011

ill never put another one in my tanks!

Tabasco1 · Mar 3, 2011

I have heard that TRUE peppermints are better behaved and that there is a shrimp that looks very similar that causes alot of heartache. Since I am not an expert on telling the difference, I will not take any chances.

Captain Nemo · Mar 3, 2011

WOW!!! Sorry that you guys have had such trouble.... mine has never given me any problems.... maybe I got a fake one that eats aiptasia.....he just looks like one.....:wink:

CookieJar · Mar 3, 2011

Bad luck I guess- I've had close to 10 over 5 years and never seen 1 touch a coral, other than eating aptasia. stealing food though is another story....

akabryanhall · Mar 3, 2011

Yup, be sure that you don't have a camel back shrimp instead of a peppermint shrimp, my peppermints are very well behaved!
Camelback

Peppermint

Murfman · Mar 3, 2011

Mine eats Aptasia and Stomatella snails, tube worms, Periwinkle snails, anything he can get his front legs in to. Thank goodness it is in a 5 gallon pico with limited zoas and a hammer.

nixer · Mar 4, 2011

Tabasco1 said:
I have heard that TRUE peppermints are better behaved and that there is a shrimp that looks very similar that causes alot of heartache. Since I am not an expert on telling the difference, I will not take any chances.

ive never got a camel shrimp all of mine have been true peppermints.
the problem with anything that will eat aptasia and not exclusively aptasia eaters is that they have the ability to eat other corals.
what my pepermints were doing was eating just the tenticles on my acans, then once they started dying they ate the rest.

butts182 · Mar 4, 2011

I'm not sure if i ever got a camelback shrimp, but i bought them a peppermints. Do camelbacks eat aptasia?

ficklefins · Mar 4, 2011

I had one go after a BTA for no reason, and no I wasn't feeding the tank. He would stroll up to the BTA, clip a tentacle, and take back to his home for lunch.

shred5 · Mar 4, 2011

Pepermints will eat anyhting they can. I have seen them rip through corals, I have seen them rip apart anemones that were just fed to get at the food. They love feather dusters. They are kind of like crabs and will eat anything they can.

Dave Polzin

fsu1dolfan · Mar 4, 2011

I had a few peppermints that never really bugged any corals but they also lost interest in aiptasias once they realized that i feed the tank...and they were pigs!!

Viva'sReef · Mar 4, 2011

Same as above, once they found out I put food in the tank, they lost interest in the aptasia. Then they started to kill and destroy my acans after I spot fed them mysis. They would tear the acan apart to get to the mysis. Yes I know the difference between camel back, and pepps. These were pepps

fsu1dolfan · Mar 4, 2011

Viva'sReef said:
Same as above, once they found out I put food in the tank, they lost interest in the aptasia. Then they started to kill and destroy my acans after I spot fed them mysis. They would tear the acan apart to get to the mysis. Yes I know the difference between camel back, and pepps. These were pepps

Wow i forgot about that. It's not that they wanted to kill the acans but they are such pigs that they rip them up stealing food away...wow i just had really bad flash backs of that too....:crossedlips: