Aptasia help

lickyricky · Oct 18, 2017

So last week I noticed a small anemone in between two rocks with lines on his tentacles. I’m guessing it’s aptasia and after looking on the forums I decided to get some peppermint shrimp. Put them in yesterday and now I have a few questions;

Was this a bad idea. Someone just said the peppermint will tear into my LPS?

How do they find this small anemone in my 40 gallon tank?

Should I try injecting it? I can remove the rock as I have corals attached. I’m just worried because people say they multiply when going this route and I only have 1 I can see at the moment.

Since there is so much conflicting info online I call on #reefsquad to help me out before this gets out of control

Thanks as always friendly reefers!

cwalton00 · Oct 18, 2017

The peppermints will come out at night and hunt for food. Give it a few days and the aptasia will most likely be gone.

As for eating LPS, they get a bad rap because they like to pull food out of the corals stomach. They don’t eat the coral itself just irritate it to the point of death.

lickyricky · Oct 18, 2017

cwalton00 said:
The peppermints will come out at night and hunt for food. Give it a few days and the aptasia will most likely be gone.

As for eating LPS, they get a bad rap because they like to pull food out of the corals stomach. They don’t eat the coral itself just irritate it to the point of death.

So would you suggest I remove the shrimp? I have lots of LPS. Wait until they eat the anemone?

DSC reef · Oct 18, 2017

Peppermint are hit or miss. I keep them without incident. I'd remove the rock before messing with them. Injecting has caused more problems IME. If you remove the rock make sure you don't leave any bits behind on the rock when you remove them. Gluing them works but they can find other holes as well to poke through.

Fudsey · Oct 18, 2017

I have had both good luck and bad luck with peppermint shrimp and aiptasia. 1st time they ate every aiptasia in my tank, unfortunately those 2 went carpet surfing and the aiptasia returned. The 2nd 2 I got did nothing for the aiptasia at all and I had a major breakout. I moved all my fish and inverts to a new tank as well as 1 peppermint that was left to a new tank. I have watched him closely and target feed him so he is less likely to attack my corals. He did approach a bird's nest when I added it but hasn't touched it..... yet I am watching closely and continue to target feed him so he won't feel the need to snack on my corals. Guess I'll have to wait and see.