Peppermint shrimp eating mushroom coral???

[marknash]

Ah that did help. its definately a peppermint shrimp.
he seems to have left the mushroom alone for right now.. maybe he was just cleaning stuff off it.. the one small mushroom is definately damaged.. maybe it wasnt doing well to begin with.
everything seems to be interested in these mushrooms, the turbo snails, our blue leg hermit, the peppermint shrimp.. lol

am feeling pretty excited with our first addition of corals
(mushroom, and button polyp)

how fast can we keep adding new corals?
any suggestions as to what our next coral addition should be ?

[NU-2reef]

Originally Posted by marknash

Ah that did help. its definately a peppermint shrimp.
he seems to have left the mushroom alone for right now.. maybe he was just cleaning stuff off it.. the one small mushroom is definately damaged.. maybe it wasnt doing well to begin with.
everything seems to be interested in these mushrooms, the turbo snails, our blue leg hermit, the peppermint shrimp.. lol

am feeling pretty excited with our first addition of corals
(mushroom, and button polyp)

how fast can we keep adding new corals?
any suggestions as to what our next coral addition should be ?

glad that helped ya. normally any new rock will get investigated by the clean up crew. pretty normal. the shrimp was likely picking at the mucous the mushroom has on it from shipping/acclimating.

first what kind of lights do you have?

as for your next coral....... its your call really. ricordea mushrooms are my favorites for begginers. most soft coral will be okay for starters.

"begginer coral" list:
mushrooms -many varieties
zoanthids/palythoas.
green star polyps.- start with small colony. they grow really fast
xenia- also grow like weeds
leaather corals- devils hand / toadstool / tree corals /

and as you get confident start with LPS like:
frogspawn / torch / hammer corals--- "easy LPS"

just a quick list of what i reccommend. adding coral can be done as your budget allows but go slow let it grow. always research before you buy.

[marknash]

we currently have a coralife aqualight t5 high output dual lamp with 1- 38 W actinic and 1 - 39 w 10 000k

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by marknash

how fast can we keep adding new corals?
any suggestions as to what our next coral addition should be ?

A good start would be to describe your system a bit and how long it's been running and water parameters.

[marknash]

hmm okay
well we have a 46g bow front tank, been running since july. we have a crappy toms aquarium skimmer/pump combo.. with an auto fill
( we think our lfs.. just sells us the stuff that benefits him at the time.. we had no idea the pump was not very good.. lesson learned)
we have koralia powerheads 1,2,3 (we were having cyano problems.. so we were told to add anohter powerhead and reduce our lighting time do you think this is too much flow for our tank?)
we keep our temp at 79-80, sg 1.025 ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate less than 5
we have about 40lbs of live rock
2 clownfish, 2 bengai cardinals, peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, fire shrimp various hermit crabs, 1 turbo snail, and 3 sand sifting snails
we just added a small green striped mushroom colony, and a small button polyp colony. we leave our lights on for 8 hours. we do weekly water changes of 10g ( is this too much?? ) we have a double t5 fixture anything else you need me to add?

[TheMikey]

My peppermint shrimp was picking at the tentacles on my new plate yesterday. I've now sold him off to another person with a FOWLR setup. He did clean up all the aptaista in the tank nicely, but I didn't want him bothering my corals.

[marknash]

this peppermint shrimp wont leave the rock! hes demolished one full mushroom now.. and it looks like hes starting on another one. sigh.
we might have to do the same thing and sell this lil guy and sell him.
is he not getting enough food.. and deciding to tear up our mushrooms ? is there anything i can do to prevent him from wrecking the whole new coral?

[NU-2reef]

i have no idea why your shrimp is misbehaving. but to protect the coral, try to cover it with something like a small blueberry basket from the grocery store or a plastic water bottle cut in half. or whatever you come up with.

mushrooms are pretty tough and can come back from almost nothing.

[Madreefer]

Originally Posted by marknash

hmm okay
well we have a 46g bow front tank, been running since july. we have a crappy toms aquarium skimmer/pump combo.. with an auto fill
( we think our lfs.. just sells us the stuff that benefits him at the time.. we had no idea the pump was not very good.. lesson learned)
we have koralia powerheads 1,2,3 (we were having cyano problems.. so we were told to add anohter powerhead and reduce our lighting time do you think this is too much flow for our tank?)
we keep our temp at 79-80, sg 1.025 ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate less than 5
we have about 40lbs of live rock
2 clownfish, 2 bengai cardinals, peppermint shrimp, cleaner shrimp, fire shrimp various hermit crabs, 1 turbo snail, and 3 sand sifting snails
we just added a small green striped mushroom colony, and a small button polyp colony. we leave our lights on for 8 hours. we do weekly water changes of 10g ( is this too much?? ) we have a double t5 fixture anything else you need me to add?

You should also be testing for calcium, magnesium, alkalinity and ph. Not too sure about that skimmer. Never heard of it. Assume it is a HOB. The flow is not too much. I really don't think that you have a peppermint shrimp, sounds more like a camelback. I would recommend you take it back to the LFS you got it from and than go find another LFS. I'm sure there is members on here that can direct you to a good one in your area. If you find a coral you like most places will let you put a hold on it. Do some research on it and than decide if you have the proper means to keep it alive and thriving and if it is compatible with other things in your tank. A good book to start with is The Conscientious Marine Aquarist. A little research saves alot of money and heartache.

[marknash]

ah thats a good idea.. will cover it up right away.
thank you all for the great advice.