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Killer peppermint shrimps???

whitebear1020

whitebear1020

I bought a small hammer coral over the weekend. As soon as I put into the tank, my peppermint shrimps attacked it. One head was gone in five seconds. They were taking apart every polyp and white stuff was flying all over the tank :'( I moved the coral into a separate container. It almost recovered over night and was fully opened by morning. I am not sure what was going on with the shrimps. I thought they were reef safe. Any thoughts? ???
 
whitebear1020

whitebear1020

Yes ;D I am sure. They were very shy at the beginning. I bought them about a year ago to control Aiptasia. I had tons of it and they did a good job cleaning it up.
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Looks like a peppermint to me, just goes to show that animal behavior has no absolutes in this hobby.
 
whitebear1020

whitebear1020

I don't think so. Coral looked very healthy.

I also googled it and found a few other people had the same problem. :'(
Needless to say, if you do not have hammer coral and need shrimp, let me know.
 
D

Dave

I have heard of this. It usually occurs with small LPS.

Peppermints are anemone killers, so if you have a coral that looks like a small anemone, it may just attack.

They usually leave larger nems alone, as they also leave larger aiptasia alone (glass anemone).
 
Nickjr000

Nickjr000

Hawkeye said:
mnat said:
I think what Nickjr was getting at is sometimes camelback shrimp are sold as peppermints and they are not reef safe at all.

http://saltaquarium.about.com/od/shrimpcare/p/prcamelbackshrimp.htm
Click to expand...

they (camelback) are fine in an sps only system but are known to be risky with LPS.
Click to expand...

Exactly what i was getting at ;D Hate when something is suppose to be reef safe and it's not when you put it in your reef! Hope mine don't turn psycho I just added 5
 
whitebear1020

whitebear1020

Hate when something is suppose to be reef safe and it's not when you put it in your reef! Hope mine don't turn psycho I just added 5. [/quote]

Do you have a hammer coral in your tank? Let me know how your shrimp reacting. I still don't know what to do with mine. ???
 
reefsandrotts

reefsandrotts

NJRC Member
I had a peppermint destroy my aussie elegance,just like you said with the hammer.
It went in the tank and they were on it like flies on ****.
 
Y

ynotme4886

See now my 3 peppermint shrimp are exactly the opposite. I have a hammer, frogspawn a torch and 2 bubbletips. They will steal the food from the bubbletips and annoy them occasionally when they shrink and shrivel to expel waste but have never bothered my corals
 
Nickjr000

Nickjr000

No hammer, but I do have a torch, the pep's I had before never bothered it and the newbies didn't go near it either..... yet!

I've never heard so many bad things about pep's. Only complaint i ever really heard is that they didn't eat an aptaisa that they were put in to eat.
 
whitebear1020

whitebear1020

The whole situation was weird. These guys are always shy and never bother anything in my tank .... as soon as I put this hammer, they came running out of nowhere. :eek: I have never seen them run so fast. ???
 
J

junk

Peppermints are the devil in my book. I'm trying to catch the last little dude in my tank then will never have another.
 
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