Peppermint shrimp, aiptasia?

[heystopthatman]

So i have a medium sized aiptasia infestation and i was gonna soon get 2 skunk cleaners for my 100 gallon. It seems like common sense they would eat the peppermints but i really need the peppermints for aiptasia. I hear its usually a hit or miss but i want them because berghia nudibranches are so expensive and die when they eat all the aiptasia. Should i for peppermints? If so how many? Also i have coral, is that fine with peppermints?

 

[shakacuz]

allegedly there is a website to buy them from that are confirmed to consume aiptasia. no idea what website this is.. i personally had no luck with a peppermint i previously had. it DID eat my aiptasia, but immediately went for my button scoly's. after i lost two, i managed to catch it in the act. i captured it and put it in the sump where it eventually perished (i'm guessing the chaeto smothered it)

you can try a file fish? but they're also hit/miss.

 

[PR_nano]

I had success utilizing peppermint shrimp for Aiptasia more than once. I also observed my skunk harassing a pair of peppermint which later disappeared and I’m almost certainly he eventually killed them. I had no issue with them going after coral but I keep soft and sps. I read they mostly go after lps.

 

[MariahP]

I had great luck with my peppermint shrimp!

 

[jda]

There are many different kinds of peppermints. You want L. Wurdmani from the Florida Keys. None of them are coral eaters, but they can eat coral if you don't feed them - so would we.

If you get another types of peppermints from other places in the Atlantic/Gulf, they don't eat aiptasia as well. I order from the Keys to make sure that mine are good.

Most of the tank raised ones are L. Wurdmani.

I have kept cleaners and peppermints in tanks together.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I never got peppermints to control aiptasia in my tank. It took a type of copperband (a Chelmon marginalis) to do the trick for me.

 

[shootingstar_reef]

I'll add my experience to the "they ate my aiptasia" column, with two caveats:

1. I have had a few, and usually 2 at a time. In one instance, whenever the shrimp became very gravid it would start nipping LPS. I haven't had another do that.
2. They won't touch the big aiptasia, you'll have to take care of those yourself. Tackle those and they'll eat whatever tries to grow in its place.

Mine are L. boggessi

 

[MrGisonni]

My peppermint shrimp did not eat my aiptasia, they did eat my Berghia though. Uggh. I will say however that my one remaining peppermint shrimp is quite large and mature and after a continuing battle using AptasiaX, they are few and far between, so maybe he is finally doing some work for me considering I don't specifically feed him.

 

[jabberwock]

My experience with peppermint shrimp was, they did not eat a single aptasia, then after about a week, they were never seen again. I might as well have just lit a 20 dollar bill on fire.