Peppermint shrimp eating LPS?

[PietschBR]

hello guys,

i recently bought a very nice Aussie Duncan LPS, it is small and has only 6 heads.. everything was going well until i saw they are closing up completely when lights are off, i've investigated further and caught my peppermint shrimp harshly picking on the coral.. Today when the lights were ON the coral did not look happy at all and the heads were retracted most of the time..
Can the shrimp be eating my coral or could he just be looking for food? i've read at some threads that sometimes they can be misidentificated with camelback shrimp but i've got him for over 6 months now and it never touched any coral except when looking for food.
Tomorrow i'll try to take a pic of him when the lights are back on.
What are your thoughts on this?
Thanks

[organism]

Have you looked at pictures of both camel and peppermint shrimp to make sure? Peppermints can go rogue though, if yours was picking on corals it might be time to find him a new home...

[jc-reef]

^^^^^ once they get a taste for coral, there is no turning back. They are creatures of opportunity and there is no telling if/when they can turn to corals. I had Frogsporn that was polished off in 1 night.,....so they were trapped and banned to my sump to live out the remainder of their lives.

Time to GO!!!!!

[DonRW2007]

Hmmm... First I've heard of peppermint shrimp bothering corals. I have 6 or 7 in my tank and they have never touched a coral that I'm aware of...

[PietschBR]

any ideas how to catch it? I really don't mind taking it away.. i was ****ed with it today because it stole a shrimp i gave to my BTA. lol, damn scavengers!

[PietschBR]

i took a closer look at some pictures and now i'm 100% sure that it's not a camel shrimp.. mine is dark red with black stripes...

[sue711]

I got rid of my peppermint shrimps after I found they were basically shredding my Dendro heads to death picking for food in their mouths. The shrimps were very tricky to catch, and it took me two weeks to catch all three of them using a net and bait ... I did it at night in the dark, with a flashlight covered with a red lens.

[frankpayne32]

There are MANY incidences of true peppermint shrimp eating all different corals. Many people that have been lucky with their peppermints argue that the only coral eaters are the camel shrimp but myself and many others have had a coral eating peppermint. They don't all do it, but like someone already said, once they start they keep doing it. Get that thing out of there!

[aecasasus]

I had a pepeermint shrimp that would munch on my red mushrooms. Got him out and will never put another in any of my tanks.

He did REALLY good with aiptasia though...

[Runfrumu]

I always drop a few sinking pellets onto the sand for my hermits and shrimps to keep them happy and in check, but the shrimp are only cleaner, which will make it hard to feed corals unless you feed them first.

[gr3]

My peppermint shrimp are starting to get too hungry now that the aiptasia is almost all gone. They have started picking on my T. geoffroyi open brain coral. I am going to start dropping pellets in after all the lights are off because that is when the p. shrimps are active in my tank. I hope that keeps them satisfied, otherwise I will have to remove them.

[PietschBR]

My peppermint shrimp are starting to get too hungry now that the aiptasia is almost all gone. They have started picking on my T. geoffroyi open brain coral. I am going to start dropping pellets in after all the lights are off because that is when the p. shrimps are active in my tank. I hope that keeps them satisfied, otherwise I will have to remove them.

I had to remove my peppermint, unfortunately it was also picking at my BTA and many other corals. Strangely tough it took about 6 months in the tank to show this behavior.

[gr3]

My coral looks a lot better today, hopefully the pellets will do the trick.

[gr3]

Too bad you had to get rid of yours. I will be keeping a close eye on my corals.

[maybeshewill]

Hmmm.. I was considering not putting a six-line wrasse in my tank because it cleaned off peppermint shrimps, but now I'm worried about putting peppermints in my tank. The whole reason I wanted them was to prevent aiptasia, but if they also eat coral.. :(

[raylost]

If you want to remove it check this

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2050712

[raylost]

In my case I bought 5 to get rid of my asptacia problem. They ate all the asptacia, but then started to nipped in my zoas & other coral. I remove all of then! two months later still no asptacia on site.

[Fish Biscuit]

I drop pieces of sinking algae wafers in my tank a few times a week if my peppermint seems more hungry than usual. Sometimes he eats them & sometimes he doesn't & leaves it for the hermit.

I would feed the shrimp before you feed the corals. Mine will eat anything that goes in the tank & runs out when I put in Ocean Nutrition formula 2 flakes for the blenny.

[Fish Biscuit]

& I've had mine for probably 6 months & he doesn't eat any of my corals

[Lynnmw1208]

I had 2 peppermints and once the aiptasia were gone, they started snacking on my pink hammer coral overnight! They are now in my sump and my pink hammer has since recovered. you could feed those brats all day and they will just eat and eat and eat. their appetite is insatiable.

[JMartin104]

^^^^^ once they get a taste for coral, there is no turning back. They are creatures of opportunity and there is no telling if/when they can turn to corals. I had Frogsporn that was polished off in 1 night.,....so they were trapped and banned to my sump to live out the remainder of their lives.

Time to GO!!!!!

Ditto!

[gr3]

I have been dropping a pinch of sinking pellets every night and the corals are all doing fine so far.