Peppermint Success!

[DD]

I bought my first peppermint shrimp last week due to aiptasias hitching along on my new live rock.

For 1 whole week I've watched this shrimp go up to the aiptasias, touch it, then run away screaming! lol

After that it would take the long way around the areas where the nems were at.

At this point I'm pretty aggravated with the shrimp and start reading up on other ways of ridding my tank of these pests.

Well, the lights came on today and wouldn't you know it, a good number of the aiptasia are gone!

My first thought was that they probably moved. That is until I see the shrimp picking at the nems! The shrimp finally manned up!

Just thought I would share this with everyone who has aiptasia problems. It took my shrimp almost a week to start taking care of these things so be patient!

 

[Lil BamBam]

LOL!!! That was funny....

 

[MMreef]

That's my experience with them too. I bought 4 peppermint shrimps and took about a week to see decline in aiptasia population. Another week went by and no sight of aiptasia since then.

 

[DD]

LOL!!! That was funny....

Lol!

That's my experience with them too. I bought 4 peppermint shrimps and took about a week to see decline in aiptasia population. Another week went by and no sight of aiptasia since then.

There are still a few left so I'm hoping that it gets them quickly. I'll post an update in a few days to see if it eats any more of them.

 

[BocoChoco]

If they few left are big they may never touch em. Try to boiling vinegar injection method

 

[DD]

If they few left are big they may never touch em. Try to boiling vinegar injection method

Ill try that out if the shrimp doesn't take care of the rest by the end of the week!

 

[DD]

Quick update: The peppermint shrimp will not touch the larger aiptasias which is exactly what is described by everyone and everywhere online.

For the larger aiptasias in my tank, I bought aiptasia X. So far it has worked! A note of caution on using this product though: Be extremely careful when applying this as if there are any corals below your target, you can inadvertently spray some on them as well. Just be careful and slow and you should be able to get quite close to the mouth of the aiptasia and nuke it! I nuked about 5 or 6 of them and they are gone.

I'll update this again in about a month to see if they come back or have spread. I'm thinking the peppermint shrimp will handle the smaller ones, should they arise elsewhere.

 

[Tethered_Limbs]

could get berghias.

 

[William Lutman]

I added one Peppermint shrimp to my frag tank to take care of anything that comes in on a frag. Oh and one emerald crab too.

 

[DD]

could get berghias.

I thought of those when I was looking into the natural way of getting rid of these but they only feed on aiptasias and in my tiny tank they would soon run out of food. They are also difficult to find here locally and expensive.

I added one Peppermint shrimp to my frag tank to take care of anything that comes in on a frag. Oh and one emerald crab too.

Yeah the peppermint took care of the smaller aiptasias, just not the bigger ones. I think the larger ones would have eaten the peppermint shrimp!