Trouble with Peppermints?

[tico mike]

Anyone ever have problems with peppermint shrimp irritating and nibbling at LPS???

[Clownnut]

i frag a small rics yesterday. later that night i found the "lost" peppermint "cleaning" the frag rics...

[jules77]

galaxia they love it, otherwise nothing else in my tank. Mine are all sump rats these days except for the one well behaved one.

[tico mike]

I think my little problem may be solved, if I can catch it. Damage done only at night. I've caught him on the coral a few times, but never noticed anything until tonight. Now to get him out.

[Graham]

Think it might just be picking at food items on the coral?
Is there any type of tissue recession/death? I've always found peps to be model citizens with any and everything I've ever kept.

[JnS]

Originally Posted by Graham

Think it might just be picking at food items on the coral?
Is there any type of tissue recession/death? I've always found peps to be model citizens with any and everything I've ever kept.

I agree.

[kjdeut]

My only problem with peps is keeping them alive. They go down into the rock work and i never see them again. The few times I have seen him he was not bothering any corals.

Ken

[jules77]

I tend to disagree, I have read that there are actually different varities of Pepps. A good kind that are generally model citizens, and a different kind from a different area that are known for picking on LPS. I had about 5 and everynight I would go and look after the lights were out and they would be lined up at the galaxia for a meal. The galaxia polyps in the area that they were hanging out in were slowly dying. I ended up netting them one by one each night until there was only one left in the display. I would imagine this was because the galaxia was green and triggered them to eat it. The polyps grew back after a few months but I won't be adding pepps to the display again. I would setup a holding area with rocks that are infected and throw pepps in the holding area.

[Ben]

Real peppermints will eat polyps. Otherwise they would not be known as an apstasia antidote. I saw mine also grab one polyp of Xenia and run off with it. The Xenia was already dying though, I think. However, as soon as I added a pair of skunk cleaners to the tank, he started hiding and had vanished permanently within a month. Peppermints are an Atlantic lysmata (cleaner) shrimp species.

"Camel" shrimp are often enough sold as "peppermint" shrimp, as they have a similar enough coloration. They will eat whatever they can get their claws on. They are a Pacific species of a different genus.

The LFS doesn't check thoroughly to see which they've got, just slaps a label on. Preferably the more valuable label...

[Loverotties]

Nope not mine.

[Graham]

Camelbacks tend to be the "bad" ones. They are red and white, pepps are red and clear/transluscent. They also have a more humped back than peppermints.

I wouldn't go so far as to say that peppermints are indiscriminate polyp eaters. Every pepp I've had has eaten Aiptasia and has not eaten anything "desirable". Sure, they walk on corals, but that's not going to hurt them. Much like every pygmy angel I've ever had has been "caught" nipping around my corals. It's not eating the coral, though. It's eating something else. Very easy to jump to conclusions with stuff like that.

[tico mike]

Well I've got about 10 pics in broad daylight of a pep eating a coral. Is he cleaning it? This was a perfectly healthy coral that was extending to eat two days ago. Now it's almost gone, unless someone knows of an LPS problem that wipes things completely out overnight while all other corals grow.

[redwinger]

Makes me lean more towards a cbb for aptaisia control with some of my LPS in the tank. It sounds like mike has first hand experience and the pics to prove it and that is good enough for me. I couldn't think of anything that would wipe out just one corals especially lords as they are pretty hard to kill.

[tico mike]

Originally Posted by redwinger

Makes me lean more towards a cbb for aptaisia control with some of my LPS in the tank. It sounds like mike has first hand experience and the pics to prove it and that is good enough for me. I couldn't think of anything that would wipe out just one corals especially lords as they are pretty hard to kill.

I want to check other sources, but I can't figure what else could be eating things...Unless there is an RTN for LPS??? I have lots of pics, this guy is not shy...

[Graham]

Wow, so can you actually see it tearing flesh off the skeleton?

Do you see any sign of tissue sloughing?