Peppermint Shrimp -- Savior or Sinner?

[Dargason]

I recently purchased a 200g tank full of live rock and sand. Unfortunately, the rocks had a mild infestation of aiptasia.

After doing lots of research on this and other boards, I decided that peppermint shrimp would be a good way to get rid of the nuisance. I put 4 in the tank and they have been there for about 6 weeks now, and the aiptasia isn't gone, although it has stabilized and has even started declining about 1 per week. It's actually low enough now that I could probably wipe the rest out "manually." So in this sense, the peppermint shrimp were the answer to my problem.

But of course the shrimp aren't going away after they've done their job. They haven't done any damage to corals (of which I have almost none yet anyway) but I'm getting ready to add a bunch of neat sand bed critters I just ordered from IPSF. Based on some of the things I've read more recently, I'm worried these guys are going to feast on my recent additions.

So what's your experience? Have your pepps been model citizens in your tank, or do you wish you'd dealt with the aiptasia a different way? Should I be trying to figure out how to get them back out of the tank? Am I wasting my money buying spaghetti worms?

Thanks!
Mike

[ October 30, 2001: Message edited by: Dargason ]</p>

 

[Anonymous]

Ideally, I would let them finish off the aiptasia, and then leave them in for a couple of months more. Shrimp are pretty easy to get out so that shouldn't be a problem. Then- get the terbellid worms. The shrimp will eat em all up!

 

[2poor2reef]

They be neither sinner nor saint. They is what they is: opportunistic carnivores. Pepps and emerald green mithrax crabs are my two stand-by critters that spend a lot of time in the sump in between aiptasia and valonia outbreaks respectively. Pepps eat aiptasia and they spawn once a month or so, both of which are very cool. They also hunt pods and ministars and other things I wish they wouldn't and they will take food from polyps and trim the end of your zoanthus for you whether you ask them to or not. It is simply the nature of the beast. You take the good with the bad.

 

[GMH320]

If you feed them like you would any fish in the tank, there destructive behavior is kept to a minimum. They are scavangers and a non stop eating machine...

 

[Lefty1]

Mine were model citizens for almost two years. Never touched anything in my sand bed and I always said "just make sure they are fed and they are fine". About a month ago I found one eating a snail. Snails must be the gateway critter. Now I cant find any mini stars, my snails are few, bristle worms are few, pod's are few. Strangely they didn't touch the spaghetti worms. I got tons of those, but maybe they were next on the menu. So, I say catch them out sooner, or just leave one in there. I got mine out this morning.

Good luck.

RR