Peppermint Shrimp eating my Rock Flowers

[danschoenherr]

So I noticed one of my rock flowers weas looking a bit "dishevilled" and was moving around a bit. Then, I wasn't able to locate it, which didn't really concern me as there are a lot of hiding places. But one night near lights out, I noticed the 2 Peppermint Shrimp that I have prowling about the tank and all of a sudden, start in on one of the other Rock Flowers. At first I thought they were just going after some food in it's mouth, but they were actually tearing flesh off. They managed to dislodge the foot and kept tearing at it. Luckilly, I was able to net them both within 15 minutes, as they would not leave the RFA alone and I moved them to the sump. The RFA hung on for about a week, but did not make it. Is this a common thing with Peppermints? I still had a few small Aptaisa that I was hoping they would finish off, but I guess the pretty colors of the RFA's were too tempting. At least I figured it out before they took out the other 4 really pretty ones.

 

[Baldguy]

I don't know if it is common but it is certainly not unusual. Some of the vendors that specialize in rfa's say don't risk having Peppermint shrimp along with rfa's. One guy at a frag swap said they will go after the smaller rfa's. Having said that some report not having an issue.

 

[mfinn]

I just picked up a couple really nice 3-4 color RFA's and overnight the peppermints destroyed them.

 

[Marcom12]

Not to hijack the thread... But will they harm BTA's?

 

[mfinn]

Not to hijack the thread... But will they harm BTA's?

Never heard of it.

 

[tehmadreefer]

Yup peppermints will destroy soft fleshy corals. It’s not 100% but most likely.

 

[Marcom12]

hmm have one peppermint and one BTA... Guess I'll have to watch... Cleaner shrimp an issue?

 

[KrisReef]

Good to know, sorry to hear about these losses.

 

[DSC reef]

Shrimp can be opportunistic feeders including cleaners. Ours would damage LPS by ripping food from them. Peppermint shrimp I just don't trust anymore.

 

[Land Shark]

They may be getting hungry. I keep peppermint shrimp and they are always model citizens. Then again, I feed the tank several times a day so they are actually kinda fat bellied. Lol

Seriously, a lot of the critters we keep fall in the reef safe “with caution” category and peppermint shrimp are one of them. If they are hungry, they will eat something.

 

[DSC reef]

Our tank was fed between 4-6 times daily. After 4 tries and witnessing the destruction we seriously gave up on them. They loved acans and so does my wife so no more peppermint shrimp, lol.

 

[Land Shark]

I can’t blame you.

 

[DSC reef]

I can’t blame you.

It was kind of a bummer though. We like diversity. When we had a cleaning shrimp it was really neat to see his interactions with the fish and even your hand when put in the tank.

 

[Jason mack]

Glad I saw this thread ...I get 3 rfa's this week and I have 1 peppermint shrimp in my tank ..(90g) ..I'm not gonna chance it and pull him before they get here ..

 

[Ron Reefman]

Glad I saw this thread ...I get 3 rfa's this week and I have 1 peppermint shrimp in my tank ..(90g) ..I'm not gonna chance it and pull him before they get here ..

I think that's a responsible thing to do. If you have the ability, you might put 1 RFA and the shrimp in a small tank or container and watch them for awhile.

I've had lots of peppermint shrimp over the years (a few even collected wild) that wouldn't even eat aiptasia, let alone a RFA. I currently have more than a dozen very tiny (less than 1/8th" in diameter) baby RFA's in my 40g cube along with a handful of slightly bigger one and some full size adults.I also have a cleaner shrimp and a couple of pistol shrimp and they never even bother with the tiny babies which are smaller than aiptasia would be. But I don't have any peppermint shrimp in the tank currently. On the other hand, one of the RFA's did just consume the cleaner shrimp's molt!

 

[Sharkbate]

Hunger possibly and yes , I believe they pick at a lot of soft corals. I had one and he destroyed my torch coral . I wouldn’t risk putting back in the DT personally unless you are going to spot feed regularly (as others have said also).

 

[Taylor t]

I had maybe 6-8 of them years ago with gigs. I had only one in the group they I witnessed eating the foot and side disk of the anemones. It got pulled and banished to the sump. I’ll never add them to s tank again unless I don’t have anemones with them. I watched this several times not just once. Not all of them would do this, I had one that was maybe 2.5”, it was a big one. The one that would pick and eat them was very dark in color compared to the rest. Not sure the dark color had anything to do with it though. I don’t trust them.

 

[Daniel@R2R Verified Admin]

Yep. I had a similar issue. Peppermints did a great job on keeping aiptasia at bay... but also enjoyed my RFAs.

 

[ether]

I'm peppermint shrimp will eat all sorts of stuff they are not supposed to.

 

[Stephen Glover]

You need to watch these guys really closely as they will eat whatever looks tasty to them. They decided to eat my purple Stylo after most of the aiptasia were gone.