peppermint shirmp not as effective as I though

[jeffnewt]

I finally decided to try another peppermint shrimp to try and get rid of the apstasias. I have been observing him at night with a red light. He seems to walk right over them, sometimes probing at them. He did come out for a second today and steal a peice of shrimp I was feeding to something else lol. Can anyone shed light to how effective/inaffective these guys are? I figure one in a 20 gallon and I would notice a diffrence in 2 weeks.

 

[OCDreefer]

i put three in a twenty five gallon a week ago.... have about ten apstasias..... have not noticed any action

 

[jeffnewt]

i even went through the trouble of taking out a bunch of rock and capturing my BC shrimp. I think he may have killed my first one a year ago. I put him down with the cheato untill tonight when I felt bad and put him back in the main tank. they are both roaming around right now in the dark.

I was told the peppermints eat poylps as well. "watch out, after they run out of apstasia they will eat poylps". Oh that made me think it was game over for the apstasia for sure.

 

[morgan]

well if u did your research u would know there is more then one type of peppermint and only 1 type eats it if u get the right one it could eat more then 20plus aptasia in a night i know my 3 did
never heard that they may eat polyps i mean rabbit fish may eat corals but alot of people have them i have SEEN a purple tang eat acans.. but people still buy them

 

[alki]

I had 5 and they took 30 minutes to get rid of my aptasia. Then they started going after a anemone I have. So I was able to catch 3 and the 2 left have given me no problems.
Maybe you have a diff kind? I know the camel shrimp is often confused with the peppermint. You can google and tell the diff.

Or maybe he doesnt like aptasia

 

[luisse25]

i got infested with aiptasia and i bought 2 peppermints..i had about 30+of aiptasia..in one night they ate it all..i kept them eventhough i dont have aiptasia anymore..then a while ago i added a coral,i notice a small tiny aiptaisia on a piece of rock with the coral,i got worried then hours later i look at it and its gone..they are really good pest killer but they are a pest too..theyre food stealer..specially on acans they will dig on the mouth of the acans..one time my acan got ripped/tear on the flesh..now theyre after my sun coral when feeding..

i cant catch these buggers as theyre smart..i will break down my tank pretty soon and will get rid of them...

 

[alki]

i got infested with aiptasia and i bought 2 peppermints..i had about 30+of aiptasia..in one night they ate it all..i kept them eventhough i dont have aiptasia anymore..then a while ago i added a coral,i notice a small tiny aiptaisia on a piece of rock with the coral,i got worried then hours later i look at it and its gone..they are really good pest killer but they are a pest too..theyre food stealer..specially on acans they will dig on the mouth of the acans..one time my acan got ripped/tear on the flesh..now theyre after my sun coral when feeding..

i cant catch these buggers as theyre smart..i will break down my tank pretty soon and will get rid of them...

Yea they are totally smart. Thats why I still have 2 in my tank. I tried for 3 weeks to catch them! Ohh well

 

[luisse25]

Yea they are totally smart. Thats why I still have 2 in my tank. I tried for 3 weeks to catch them! Ohh well

haha they are so annoying too.sometimes when i get really annoyed bec of them stealing food,,,i swear i wanna just smash them..:lol:

 

[jeffnewt]

well if u did your research u would know there is more then one type of peppermint and only 1 type eats it if u get the right one it could eat more then 20plus aptasia in a night i know my 3 did
never heard that they may eat polyps i mean rabbit fish may eat corals but alot of people have them i have SEEN a purple tang eat acans.. but people still buy them

in that case can you reccomend a source that could help me to figure out which one I have?

 

[roscoe]

Pepermints are hit and miss. Before I had my mystery wrasse I had 4 peppermint shrimps and I had no aptaisa what so ever. Once I got my Mystery Wrasse he made short work of the peppermint shrimp. So I went pepermint shrimpless for like 3 or 4 months and still no aptasia. One day I spotted a HUGE aptaisa in the back of my tank. I decided that it was a dead sucker! That turned out to be the biggest mistake! I killed it but he sent an army of tiny aptasia a few weeks later. I should've just let that one be LOL. So now that I have a Mystery Wrasse I can't put in cleaner and pepermint shrimp in. I put in 3 small cleaners and 4 peppermint a while back and again the MW turned them into an expensive meal for himself. He is lucky I like him. Althugh the Mystery wrasse decided that one pepermint can live in his tank but he fails to do any damage to the aptasia. What it does now is sit and wait around what I call my LPS alley. Once I feed my tank after a couple minutes the LPS would extend their polyps to grab food and then that is when the stupid PS start to attack my LPS for food. My coral banded shrimp has studied the PS behavior and now is starting to do the same thing. Once I tear down this tank those 2 are dead!

 

[gotfish]

Roscoe, I'll take the peppermint from you if you really don't want it. Let me know how much you want. To the OP, I had a couple aiptasia that came in on my original live rock. I bought a peppermint shrimp which did eat them. Like someone said earlier though, just cause mine did, doesn't mean the ones you bought will.

 

[roscoe]

Roscoe, I'll take the peppermint from you if you really don't want it. Let me know how much you want. To the OP, I had a couple aiptasia that came in on my original live rock. I bought a peppermint shrimp which did eat them. Like someone said earlier though, just cause mine did, doesn't mean the ones you bought will.

Well Kerri it is yours when I take the tank down. Honestly he don't deserve to live LOL. That little bastard steal all the food away from my LPS! I agree just because the PS ate aptasia in ones tank don't mean it will do the same in yours. If you have LPS they will quickly become a nuisance.

 

[gotfish]

I typically feed the peppermint at the same time I'm feeding the LPS. All my LPS are on 1 side of the tank and I tempt him to the other side and give him a whole krill then I'll feed the LPS. Roscoe, in your tank, that would be much harder to do.

 

[tike]

There is only one store that I buy peppermint shrimps from and they always eat the aptaisa reeftopia.com. I have tried several places with no success but this place seems to have the real deal.

 

[as1720]

I got two from petco and it took about 3 months befor the aptasia started to disapear, then one day they were all gone over night. Never ever saw them eating the aptasia they always hid whenever they saw me. They also ate whatever other food i was putting in the tank. They only missed one befor i sold them. So i will be buying one again to get rid of the last aptasia. I would give them PLENTY of time i did and they did there job.

I have had the one aptasia in my tank since They peppermint shrimp left about 2 months ago? I have not messed with it and so far its still the only one in the tank.

 

[Reef Setup]

Hey newt, you should just stab your aptasia so they'll come back full force! NOT KOOL how you sold me that skimmer 5 months ago with a mag 5 pump that rattled to death and gave out! And all that aptasia on the chaeto you sold me! Karma will bit you in the ***!

 

[jeffnewt]

Hey newt, you should just stab your aptasia so they'll come back full force! NOT KOOL how you sold me that skimmer 5 months ago with a mag 5 pump that rattled to death and gave out! And all that aptasia on the chaeto you sold me! Karma will bit you in the ***!

how dare you. And that schemer I sold you was a steal!(and so was the pump you must have plugged it in wrong). Alex and Niles you guys are too cool for this site

 

[Sascha D]

I had a peppermint shrimp for about 2 years, he only ate the little ones. The big ones I had to kill manually. He was pretty cool, but he would disappear for 4 months at a time, emerge for about a week bigger than before and then disappear again.

 

[alki]

you guys are funny!

 

[as1720]

My shrimp would leave foot prints in the sand by morning running all along the front of the tank, thats pretty much all i ever saw of them. lol