Aiptasia and the Peppermint shrimp...

Hi All

Very interested to get your ideas and advise on this topic - seems the Aiptasia likes my tank and although I got rid of a few, more are present. I understand Peppermint Shrimp eat them - although my question is what else do they eat, Gonnies etc ?? And do the work as a effective option to control this pest ? If not what do you guys do ? I see the shrimp in LFS for $20 each - not sure if they can be found locally yet but I am about to go looking.....

Thanks for any feed back or advise....

We see thousands of peps in the right places and conditions





and if you have a lot in your tank they do more than help keep down apitasia,well while they are small they will graze on them,not always the large apts.

They also clean fish,remove waste and generaly keep the tank in good order!!

I put thirty in mine at the start,i dont know how many are there now,i just see one or two from time to time,the wrasse are most likely eating some so this week i am getting some more for myself and Danny,just in case the numbers are down because of the wrasse.

They breed quite a lot though,if your tank is right you will end up with lots of them if they don't get eaten by the corals as such and they are no trouble in any way at all!!

Good to know - I figured they could be found, the secret (very closely kept secret as it turns out) is were ?

I went out yesterday and saw -
a small (tiny) octopus (would be very cool in his own tank - those new ones that have the top sealed so you can see down into them)
Glass shrimp - little white boxing glove type (mostly egg carying females)
Nudi's
Small scorpion fish
Zoa's
Feather dusters

even an awesome little angler type fish - the ones that walk which was cool- ALL of which I just found and left alone !

NO Peppermint shimp !!!!!

Where are the pics,geez you forum users are lazy!!

Yer - fair comment !

The camera I have has done way to many boat trips over the years and I dont bother taking it on land based adventures (not water proof and I WILL drop it) - when funds allow I will invest in a new water proof camera, my mate has the new Panasonic - good for 10mtrs - tested it and its great for the price point.... just need to get my funds sorted.....

Anyway tides dropping - I'm off for round 2 of Peppermint searching.... (well I will try anyway)....

SO I went and search for the elusive peppermint shrimp - here is what I observed











And I found him.....

Thats a cutey.

Sorry first post stuffed up - I added more pics... above

Put it all in as a collecting trip, in the collecting section,Danny was on just before as admin,he or i will put your thread with a sticky,all most recent collecting trips go at the top!

Here,since you are putting in pics of trips and hopefully others will as well,i added the shrimp info in our information thread in the collecting section,use it wisely.

Scroll down and the shrimps info is there.

https://southeastqueenslandm.aforumfree.com/t317-information-on-fish-and-invert-collectingfrom-regulations-to-how-to-collectinfo-updated-each-3-months#967

Cool thanks - Useful stuff there....

The peppermints are okay and a copper band as well, both are cool for these pesky colony anemones,its just you need so many of the peps to keep back the apitasia and the costs,$20 plus each
A mate has a fowlr tank and got a few chaetodons,they mowed them down in just a few days in that tank.
Hey i looked at that information thread,thats very helpful,it must have taken some work to get all that together

Since the introduction of 5 peppermint shrimp I am happy to report that all the nasty anemones are gone..... and I am not sure if it is coincedence but all the annoying red slime algae growing on the coral sand is also gone too - what a bonus!

They are so cool, the way they swagger from left to right, very shy but cool......

Too true mate,they are an awsome part of the aquarium life forms.