Peppermint shrimp ate my coral

reefz · Mar 4, 2022

The last few months Ive noticed my lps, spefically hammers and frogspawn, was slowly dieing off. All my other corals were doing just fine, and all my elements were perfectly in check. So why would my hammers and frogspawn just randomly die? I don't have angelfish, or any type of fish that is known to eat coral. I only have a few tangs, damselfish, and clownfish. Well, after a few weeks of watching this happen, I checked the tank late at night when the lights were off and saw one of my peppermint shrimp sitting on top of the frogspawn picking at it! Watching it closer, It was actually sticking the frogspawn tentacles in it's mouth. I'm so confused becuase peppermint are reef safe, so what is going on. I did some research and found maybe one or two posts of someone mentioning that pepperment shrimp might eat lps, but other then that, nothing else. I got a batch of these (10-12) to help with my aiptasia problem. After a few weeks of eventually eating all the aiptasia in my tank, I think a few must have got hungry and started to eat coral. Its been nearly impossble to catch the shrimp, so I just have left them in there. They have eaten almost all my hammers, and some frogspawn.
I thought Id make this forum to share this bizzare situation. And maybe someone will let me know how to catch them without destroying my entire tank! hah!

piranhaman00 · Mar 4, 2022

Peppermint shrimp love LPS , most will eat lps over Aiptasia, peppermint shrimp are well known to not be reef safe.

In fact, all shrimp and crabs should be considered not reef safe IMO

Losirk · Mar 13, 2022

piranhaman00 said:
Peppermint shrimp love LPS , most will eat lps over Aiptasia, peppermint shrimp are well known to not be reef safe.

In fact, all shrimp and crabs should be considered not reef safe IMO

true peppermint shrimp ARE reef safe, the problem is there are many species that are NOT reef safe that look nearly identical!

jcolliii · Mar 13, 2022

Not true. I bought some true peps and after they ate all of the aiptasia they went after some corals. That was 7 or 8 years ago now, so I can't recall what they had a taste for, LPS probably.

I made a trap with a small soda bottle. Cut the top off about an inch down from where the top straightens into the side. Take the cap off, put a small piece of rock in the bottom along with a juicy tidbit of something (I think I used a bay scallop), invert the cut off top part so it is facing inward, use a couple pieces of clear tape to attach the top back to the sides, and voilla, you have a peppermint shrimp trap. Mine was very effective. They went to a fellow reefer with an aiptasia problem the next day.

Something like this...

pecan2phat · Mar 13, 2022

If you want to get the peps out, put a Mystery wrasse in there. They are reef safe in terms of corals, nice to look at but do definitely go after shrimps.
One thing to note is that aiptasia will most likely pop up after the peps are gone cause they are a plague.

vetteguy53081 · Mar 13, 2022

Reason I wont buy them or use them. Simply Cant be trusted.
I trust a politician more than I trust these shrimp as well as emerald crabs

piranhaman00 · Mar 14, 2022

Losirk said:
true peppermint shrimp ARE reef safe, the problem is there are many species that are NOT reef safe that look nearly identical!

Wrong, true peppermint will still eat coral

Sink_or_Swim · Apr 2, 2022

vetteguy53081 said:
Reason I wont buy them or use them. Simply Cant be trusted.
I trust a politician more than I trust these shrimp as well as emerald crabs

My emerald crabs have been model citizens (so far... fingers crossed), lol! But I did watch Inappropriate Reefer find his munching on some coral so... I know they can go rogue.