How many Peppermints do I need

[merk1_99]

I have a tank with what I think is a ton of aptasia. But a reefer friend says I barely have any....Anyways my tank dims and rockwork make it extremely difficult to conduct any aptasia kalk killing missions. I want to go the Peppermint route. How many do you think I need for a 55gallon. I have heard to get good results you need a group of them. What happens to them after the aptasia is gone, will they survive?

 

[dz6t]

A pack of six seems to do the magic.
You can get some super size peppermint from Reeftopia. Smaller ones are hard to keep alive after shipping.

 

[DLCanuck]

i say one per five to ten gallon

 

[seahorsedreams]

I put 4 in the 60 and they cleaned the appys out in two weeks.

 

[Liam]

i put a dozen in my 180 and they never touched them.

 

[seahorsedreams]

You have to be careful you get the right variety. I guess saying peppermints is too vague. I bet you ended up with the wrong one Liam. You have to make sure you get the wurdemanni... they are the only ones that eat appys.

 

[JayM]

A pack of six seems to do the magic.
You can get some super size peppermint from Reeftopia. Smaller ones are hard to keep alive after shipping.

i put a dozen in my 180 and they never touched them.

You have to be careful you get the right variety. I guess saying peppermints is too vague. I bet you ended up with the wrong one Liam. You have to make sure you get the wurdemanni... they are the only ones that eat appys.

If anyone wants to do a group buy on them, I'm in. In my upstairs tank, they seemed to hang out in 3's...and I'd be onboard to buy a dozen or more. They seemed to find enough to eat after the aptasia were gone...until they were eaten in turn by my damn grouper

 

[Liam]

You have to be careful you get the right variety. I guess saying peppermints is too vague. I bet you ended up with the wrong one Liam. You have to make sure you get the wurdemanni... they are the only ones that eat appys.

how do you tell the difference?

 

[deadhermitwalkin]

Easy

how do you tell the difference?

Lift thier tail!

 

[xp964]

I think the ones confused with peps are camel-backs. Their back makes a big hump (like a camel ), and the pep's back is only angled a little.

 

[Liam]

I think the ones confused with peps are camel-backs. Their back makes a big hump (like a camel ), and the pep's back is only angled a little.

oh,i thought folks were saying there was a difference in peppermint shrimp

 

[JGard]

oh wow, I'm slacking. Ihave only 1 in my 55g tank

It's the longest living shrimp I've ever had, too! Most of my shrimp (I've had both fire and skunk cleaners) seem to not last more than a few months. The peppermint has gone almost a year now

 

[zear0]

I bought a few large pieces of live rock that had aiptasia and 2 peppermints took care of them in a few days. My system is 120 gallons, but my aiptasia problem was relatively minor. My peppermints are both dead now... One died within a few months and the other was around for about 10 months before disappearing.

I found these images a long time ago when researching peppermints:

lysmata rathbunae (NOT A PEPPERMINT)

and

lysmata wurdemanni being the "true peppermint" and looks very very similar to the rathbunae:

They are not easy to tell apart and it will be even more difficult if you don't have both species right next to each other. I would recommend buying one or two at at first to see if they work on the aiptasia. If so, then you buy a few more from the same place if you want. Otherwise, you can look somewhere else for peppermints.

 

[seahorsedreams]

Actually my info may be a little different here. There are two shrimp with the same common name of peppermint. Both look really similar. One is the other is the L. wurdemanni and the L. californica.

 

[zear0]

I just found this:

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/ca/cav1i3/aiptasia_impressions/aiptaisia_impressions.htm

Steven says the L. Californica, like the Rathbunae, is reported as less likely to feed on aiptasia.

I guess this just goes to show that a lot of what we know in this hobby is based on anecdotal evidence. Considering that there are at least three species of Lysmatta shrimp that even the "experts" have a hard time telling apart. What we end up reading on the internet is a hodge-podge of observed behaviors of these different specieis that get attributed to the poor old peppermint shrimp. I guess I am assuming that peppermint is the common name for just the L. Wurdemanni species and not the others

Anywho... this is why I recommend buying a few to "try out" and see if they do what you want.

 

[JayM]

I bought a few large pieces of live rock that had aiptasia and 2 peppermints took care of them in a few days. My system is 120 gallons, but my aiptasia problem was relatively minor. My peppermints are both dead now... One died within a few months and the other was around for about 10 months before disappearing.

I found these images a long time ago when researching peppermints:

lysmata rathbunae (NOT A PEPPERMINT)

and

lysmata wurdemanni being the "true peppermint" and looks very very similar to the rathbunae:

They are not easy to tell apart and it will be even more difficult if you don't have both species right next to each other. I would recommend buying one or two at at first to see if they work on the aiptasia. If so, then you buy a few more from the same place if you want. Otherwise, you can look somewhere else for peppermints.

fist link is broken,at least for me. And with three (alleged) peppermints in a 30 gallon sump with only a Sally lightfoot for company, the aiptasia lives on