Peppermint Shrimp and Aptasia

[mudskipper1]

I was wondering if peppermint shrimp are more likely to eat aptasia when they are in groups. I only have one, and it does not seem to be touching the aptasia. Will keeping them in groups actually increase the likelihood that each individual eats aptasia, or does keeping them in groups just increase your chances of getting an individual that likes to eat aptasia?

THX in Advance

[douglam]

just increases your chances of getting one that eats it. i guess from reading on here that only the ones from the atlantic eat it. they have back tails

[poppin_fresh]

The thing I noticed that is that if they were fed well by me, they didn't have as much of a taste for Aips. I had to be careful not to let too much food come with in reach of them.

[JediReefer]

I had the same problem. My peps would not even touch an aip, they loved the mysis too much.

[918ReefCpl]

We've recently got some Pep's from Reeftopia and those little guys came with empty stomachs and really went after the Apistasia in our AZFRAG group members tanks....BTW even found some Pep's at Petco in the SW sections if you only need a few...

[eshook]

I received frags from a guy with aiptasia. I bought 1 pep and threw him in the q.t. with the frags. He had no alternative and all the aiptasia are gone. Obviously if the aiptasia are in your tank it won't work, but I would try to limit the food available to him/them if possible.

[mudskipper1]

I will try feeding my fish out of my hand(they already will) to reduce the amount of food that they do not eat. Hopefully that will give it more of an apetite. I am also trying the method where you inject them with near boiling water. Only killed one successfully(I think it was successful)so far, but I will continue trying.

thank you for the responses

[eshook]

I used lemon juice (easy to get from the fridge) it seemed to successfully kill 4-5 and only was only unsuccessfully once. That was my experience with it at least.

[Regan]

I've had some good luck with Joe's Juice. The peppermint shrimp has been hit or miss, but when they do eat it, they clean house.

[sugarbaker]

I have one peppermint shrimp in my 75, I noticed that he only ate the small aptasia (less than an inch or so), so I went and used an exacto knife and a siphon (vacuum) to cut the big ones off... of course this leaves the base there, but the peppermint shrimp was then able to eat them when they started to grow back. Now, my tank is clear of aptasia, and my peppermint shrimp just tinkers around and eats whatever I put in the tank.

[kraash]

I have had success with peps eating the smaller aptasia, I have also found that if I "wound" one of the aptasias with an exacto knife, screwdriver, ice pick what ever is lying around, that after the lights go out, there will be a pep cleaning up the wounded aptasia no matter what size it is. HTH

[outlaw60]

Originally posted by kraash
I have had success with peps eating the smaller aptasia, I have also found that if I "wound" one of the aptasias with an exacto knife, screwdriver, ice pick what ever is lying around, that after the lights go out, there will be a pep cleaning up the wounded aptasia no matter what size it is. HTH

This method works for my tank as well, mine also have the black tail (atlantic species)...hth

[drstupid]

does anyone keep them in their overflow?