Peppermint Shrimp For Aiptasia

mantisman51

mantisman51

Active Member
I bought 6 peppermint shrimp to control the aiptasia that was spreading like wildfire in my reef tank (I bought LR and got a bunch of zoas, so now I'm trying to get a good reef established now). In 4 weeks they have taken care of all the small aiptasia. Not bad, considering there was 30-40 of the little aiptasia. Now I have 1 large aiptasia, it's about 4" tall. They aren't touching the last big aiptasia. 1) Should I keep the one aiptasia to give a food source for the pepperint shrimp(the baby aiptasia it will produce), or will they find other things to eat? 2) I bought a 6 line wrasse that is ready to move from the QT to the DT, is it likely to eat the peppermint shrimp? 3) The red spotted hawk in the DT hasn't bothered the peppermint shrimp yet, is it likely to eventually go after the peppermint shrimp?
p.s. I read the shrimp were good at aiptasia control, but I am amazed at how fast they cleaned the tank out of the aiptasia.
 
stdreb27

stdreb27

Active Member
Originally Posted by mantisman51
http:///forum/post/2881731
I bought 6 peppermint shrimp to control the aiptasia that was spreading like wildfire in my reef tank (I bought LR and got a bunch of zoas, so now I'm trying to get a good reef established now). In 4 weeks they have taken care of all the small aiptasia. Not bad, considering there was 30-40 of the little aiptasia. Now I have 1 large aiptasia, it's about 4" tall. They aren't touching the last big aiptasia. 1) Should I keep the one aiptasia to give a food source for the pepperint shrimp(the baby aiptasia it will produce), or will they find other things to eat? 2) I bought a 6 line wrasse that is ready to move from the QT to the DT, is it likely to eat the peppermint shrimp? 3) The red spotted hawk in the DT hasn't bothered the peppermint shrimp yet, is it likely to eventually go after the peppermint shrimp?
p.s. I read the shrimp were good at aiptasia control, but I am amazed at how fast they cleaned the tank out of the aiptasia.
They'll eat other stuff. If you only have one head left, just pull it out. You're six line will probably mess with the shrimp, but if they are full grown they should be able to hold their own. I've got several friends with 6 lines and peps. (however we can collect them locally) So it is no big deal to us at all if one gets eaten. But they don't seem to be losing any.
 
t316

t316

Active Member
Same situation here a while back, some of the same livestock, except for the hawk (I have no experience with a hawk), but the pepermint's will eat, and continue eating, the very small aptasia (say 1/4" or less), but no they won't touch the larger one's. I agree with stdreb, I would kill the remaining large one's. You don't have to worry about starving the pep's after that. Although the aptasia is a tasty snack for them, I have seen mine eat food that I put in the tank. And they do come out at night and scavange the floor of the tank. As far as the sixlines, I have two and have never seen any emotions or contact between the six's and the pep's. Might just be my experience though, not sure, you could do a little more searching on that one.
 
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