Hmm... Peppermint shrimp?

I have had some bad luck with the peppermint shrimp i have had and just wanted to see if anyone else has had the same luck. i had went to a lfs and bought two peppermint shrimp, i instantly fell in love with the pair until the larger one decided to annihilate the xenia frag i had put in the tank. :-/ i was ready to kill it. a couple weeks went by and the xenia grew back. i began putting in small pieces of shrimp so maybe he wouldnt get hungry enough to destroy it again. no luck with that. he proceeded to destroying my xenia 3 more times. somehow it kept growing back. lol then it killed the smaller shrimp. for me that was the last straw. i brought him to my friends house to get rid of him. he was acclimated well but died three days later. it was a mystery to me but i was always too angry about the situation to put some thought into it. Any thoughts?
Thanks.
-norg.

 

That is not a peppermint shrimp my friend... what you have is a camel shrimp.
Very close in looks... but peppermints do not eat coral!
This happens often

 

Yes peppermints can eat corals! They will eat some fleshy corals. Any decaying/dying softies. Mine ate almost an entire head of frogspawn. I caught him in the act, tearing strands off. Moved the frogspawn away from his side of the tank and no problems since. I also had a xenia that slowly died off near his cave area. I'm almost positive he was the culprit but I did not witness that one.

 

Hmm... i have lots of corals in my tank... have had peppermints since nearly i started..
Never had an issue.. they will eat dead material yes.. and of course aptasia lol

I would google camel shrimp though.. it was bigger and killed the other.. is what really makes me think this. worth a google though lol

 

A camel shrimp looks nothing like a peppermint if you have seen them both. The only similarity is that they both have red exoskeleton. An aiptasia is a fleshy anemone. That is not the ONLY coral that the peppermint will eat. It will eat any soft coral that taste good to it. There are several others that have had peppermints eat softies. I have had my peppermint for about 8 months. Started with two of them. One was large and one was medium. The medium died or got killed. The large one continues thrive in my reef, and the only coral he goes after is my 6 head frogspawn. Now my 2 clowns gaurd it with their lives and its on the other side of the tank, so it is well protected.

 

ive heard quite a few stories regarding the sale of peppermints, but were actually camels. eitther unknowledgable lfs's , or just dont care.

 

i know for a fact that they were peppermint shrimp so camels are ruled out. i just kinda figured it was a rouge shrimp. lol