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Peppermint shrimp


ChrisQ

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First of all a moment silence for my beloved Duncan........:shock:

 

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Okay, now is this normal? I still can't find one like that.

Because for the last week or so I've hunting predatory asterina stars that I found on one of trachys in a sister tank so immediately went searching for them in the main, and found some.

With big white spots of Coraline starting to pop up (stars eating it) and my Duncan starting to lose heads, I failed to realize/or really think of if, one of the peppermints  decided to make a home at my mag float that sits right above the Duncan.

 

Question is what peppermints do I have here? This time I quickly caught one of them there with closed polyps.

Jailed the other minutes later

 

The darker one actually looks grayesh/blue with a red bottom

 

 

Sorry not use to posting on a phone.

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If the peppermint is attracted to eating coral flesh its a sign that particular coral is dying. I have never had any of the numerous peppermints I have had over the years go after any sort of coral unless it was on its way out anyways. In one occasion with an expensive brain coral I wanted to nurse back to health after a stylo did a number on it, i returned the peppermints back to the store until tissue growth was restored, then reintroduced new ones. You might want to keep an eye on the Duncans.

I have a large colony and as the colony expands they cover up the heads below them eventually killing them off, Robert described this too me as a 1st world problem :)

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The top one is a wurdemanni (peppermint shrimp).  Hard to tell in your pictures, but it looks like the one on the right in the last picture is a peppermint shrimp. Google peppermint shrimp identification and you’ll find lots-o-info.

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Edited by cjmdh
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Well looks like they got to my Torch as well, lost a huge head and another is working its way free. My favorite coral in the tank. :flamemad: After all these years this may be the last straw.

This all makes sense now. (and i should have known better) Every time i shined a light in to check on everything one pep was next to the torch and the other pep was on the other side of the tank close to the duncans.

As far a healthy vs. unhealthy, these were the biggest and healthiest corals in my tank.

Shrimp, just like crabs are optimistic feeders and can give a rats behind if its healthy of not. They have their favorites too, a long time ago i got a nice super healthy chalice from Scott guess who took little time to have a taste?

Researching peppermints eating coral brings up many stories and many reported they were targeting certain LPS,  sadly those listed were Duncans,Torches and Acans

I've had probably more than a dozen peps over the years but only 3 rouges, they DO exist and i think these last two may have killed my love and passion for the hobby. I'm by no means rich.

 

Well, i feel 0.07% better after my small rant. Thanks for listening all.

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7 minutes ago, ChrisQ said:

Well looks like they got to my Torch as well, lost a huge head and another is working its way free. My favorite coral in the tank. :flamemad: After all these years this may be the last straw.

This all makes sense now. (and i should have known better) Every time i shined a light in to check on everything one pep was next to the torch and the other pep was on the other side of the tank close to the duncans.

As far a healthy vs. unhealthy, these were the biggest and healthiest corals in my tank.

Shrimp, just like crabs are optimistic feeders and can give a rats behind if its healthy of not. They have their favorites too, a long time ago i got a nice super healthy chalice from Scott guess who took little time to have a taste?

Researching peppermints eating coral brings up many stories and many reported they were targeting certain LPS,  sadly those listed were Duncans,Torches and Acans

I've had probably more than a dozen peps over the years but only 3 rouges, they DO exist and i think these last two may have killed my love and passion for the hobby. I'm by no means rich.

 

Well, i feel 0.07% better after my small rant. Thanks for listening all.

Sorry to hear Chris.  Hope you are able to bounce back - definitely depressing when you lose a favorite piece.  No doubt the challenges of maintaining a small ecosystem in a glass tank catches up to us all once in a while so I hope you don't give up completely.

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3 hours ago, lewisriverfisherman said:

In my peppermint's defence it did eat all the aptasia in my tank before it got to eating my frogspawn, I was even target feeding it 2 times a day with a Turkey baster. 

:laugh: Yeah the little buggers got 98% of mine too before they said screw this! Let's leave these last 5-6 and try out those tasty lookin things!  

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