![]() Cleaning around corals and possibly looking like they were, but they never really caused any damage. They are Peppermint shrimp for sure, and they eat everything in the tank, they gobbled up the polyps, they eat flake, seaweed selects, brine and silversides. But I've never heard of anybody having issues with them bothering corals. If you overcook it, you’ll end up with a mushy shrimp that won’t be able to hold its shape in. You want to make sure the shrimp is fully cooked before you add it to the aquarium. I've never had any because the banded coral shrimp in my tank won't allow any other shrimp to survive more than a few hours. The true peppermint shrimp is the top choice of aquarists for eating aiptasia anemones, but the trick with this one is making sure you don’t overload it. I think Live Aquaria sells ones that are only fed aiptasia so they are proven aiptasia eaters. Some will eat aiptasia OK and some just ignore them. Copperband butterflyfish are beautiful, sought-after marine fish and they have the added bonus of being Aiptasia eaters. I has never bothered any corals, but it is willing to eat even bigger anemones, like a rock flower, a maxi mini or a curly-cue anemone. So I moved it to my DT and in a month it has eaten every aiptasia I could see (and I had some silver dollar sized ones) and it has eaten 80% of the smaller green majano I had. I’ve had a lot of success with peppermint shrimp to get rid of Aiptasia however, these shrimp have mixed reports about whether they will eat Majanos. Meanwhile, human intervention can cause the anemone to spread even more. Many of the predators that eat Aiptasia anemones, unfortunately, will not eat Majano anemones. Peppermint Shrimp naturally removes this invasive species by eating it. I put it in the frag tank that had no aiptasia and it ate frozen and flake food for months. Predators are my preferred method of dealing with pest anemones. Now I have a Double Saddleback Butterfly that had eaten all the aiptasia and majano anemones out of a friend's tank and then ate frozen and flake food. I had a Pearscale Butterfly that worked great until I loaned it out and it died in a tank crash. But in my tank at feeding time it's like a feeding frenzy and all the food is gone before the CBB has had enough to sustain itself over the long run. If you have a very calm and quiet tank they can do better. But they are such slow and methodical eaters than all the other fish, that they rarely get enough. People put them in their tanks to eat aiptasia but when they have eaten it all they go for polyps and other anenomes. Occasionally you can find one that will eat frozen or flake food. Mine have all been like what you have heard, they eat the aiptasia and then starve. This aiptasia eating scavenger makes a colourful and reef safe addition to any home aquarium.I've gone through several different Copperbanded Butterflyfish over the years. If necessary, their diets can be supplemented with chopped squid or pellets. As a true scavenger, the Peppermint Shrimp will consume leftover meaty foods and pellets and aiptasia as well as feeding off the fish that they clean. ![]() The invasive aiptasia has few natural predators so a relatively small, reef safe, colourful invertebrate who will help manage it is a welcome addition to a home aquarium. What separates the Peppermint Shrimp from all other cleaner shrimps is its willingness to consume aiptasia. While they sometimes display this type of behaviour in a home aquarium they are not as reliable cleaners as the Scarlet Skunk Cleaner shrimp. Although it will appreciate an anemone host. Aiptasia is considered to be a pest in the saltwater aquarium because it will reproduce rather quickly in tanks with high nutrient loads and because it can sting corals and fish. Since it is a cleaner shrimp, it will sometimes set up a cleaning station where, in exchange for an easy meal, the Peppermint Shrimp will clean parasites and dead tissue off of reef fish. In the aquarium, the Pederson cleaner shrimp is peaceful and useful, cleaning fish and eating leftovers or detritus. The peppermint shrimp is supposed to eat aiptasia (glass anemones). In the wild they are most often found in the caves and crevices of the reef, which they use as a homebase for their tireless scavenging of the reef in search of meaty foods. The Peppermint Shrimp is found on coral reefs of the Caribbean and the Florida coast. It is sometimes confused with the camel shrimp, which is native to Indonesia. ![]() Its legs and antennae also tend to be a darker shade of red. This shrimp has a pinkish body with dark red and white stripes running laterally. They are also less excitingly known as the Caribbean Cleaner Shrimp or the Veined Shrimp. With its red and white body reminiscent of a candy cane, the Peppermint Shrimp is aptly named. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |