My peppermint shrimp ate my hammer coral!!!

aggies50

aggies50

Member
Ok I know a bunch of yall are gonna say "peppermint shrimp dont eat corals" well thats what I thought. Until today....
I just set up a 29 gallon nano thats been up for about 2 months. On one of the rocks I had some aiptasia. So I got two peppermint shrimp hoping they would eat them. Well sure enough they did. However this morning I woke up and noticed my hammer coral frag that my friend gave me is gone. The skeleton is still there, however the hole where the coral was sticking out of is now empty! No coral! All my permitters are normal and every other coral is doing great including my acros! I originally thought peppermint shrimp were reef safe however after this happened I looked it up online. In other forums I found a few people saying that they have seen their peppermint shrimp eating their mushrooms and one of them said they even saw their peppermints eating his hammer coral. I have renegade shrimp!!!! Ahhhh!!!! Have any of yall had this problem, or maybe know something that I dont?
 
aquaknight

aquaknight

Active Member
There's no reason to spam post, and add the same topic to multiple sections of the forum....
Which of these two pics do your shrimp look more like?

or
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member

Did you SEE the shrimp eat the coral? I ask because a few years ago I had a beautiful hammer coral (5 heads) in a single night it was completely eaten...it had been in my tank for a good year.
The eater turned out to be a worm that looks like a centipede (Bobbit worm) it had just taken that long for it to grow big enough and hungry enough to go after the coral.
You have a pretty new tank...it takes about a year for any saltwater tank to establish everything that is in and on the rocks to replenish...you could have a worm.
I am not saying the shrimp couldn't be the eaters, but don't be too quick to just settle on them, do you have moonlights? It is time to really watch your tank at night to see what lurks after dark.
 
aggies50

aggies50

Member
I feed my fish everyday and the peppermint come out to grab the leftovers. So they can't be that hungry. I just looked up what that worm looks like... it looks nasty. Haha! Ido have moon lights, but I haven't seen anything like that in the tank. But I will keep a look out for it. Honestly I may never know what it was.
 
flower

flower

Well-Known Member
Originally Posted by aggies50
http:///forum/post/3135702
I feed my fish everyday and the peppermint come out to grab the leftovers. So they can't be that hungry. I just looked up what that worm looks like... it looks nasty. Haha! Ido have moon lights, but I haven't seen anything like that in the tank. But I will keep a look out for it. Honestly I may never know what it was.


You just watch your tank about an hour or so after lights out...sit real quiet and still...you will find the coral eater...if there is more coral for the eater to find. If the frag is all you had there is no more "bait"
 
S

stickleback

Guest
I had a peppermint stealing mysis from target fed hammer corals. It wound end up ripping the heads out of the skeleton to get at the mysis. Removed the shrimp and no more dead heads. Have since been told its best to feed the shrimps prior to feeding your corals as its gives the coral time to digest its meal without being hassled
Just a thought!
 
jbirdsnest

jbirdsnest

Member
Shrimp are scavengers and can find a taste for anything. I had 5 peps, 2 were fine but the other three would eat just about anything. I witnessed one going to town on a head of hammer coral, just like he was a buzzsaw. Got to more acan heads than they were worth. It was a big headache to deal with, all for wanting to get rid of two aptasia that came on a frag.
 
melypr1985

melypr1985

Member
I actually saw my pepps eating my candy cane. I moved the candy cane out of the tank and it healed nicley, but from then on I started dropping in a shrimp to keep them full before the lights go out. The shrimp is always gone after an hour or so. I wish I could catch the two pepps but that proves to be more difficult than I would like.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top