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This stunning little shrimp ought to be kept in a saltwater aquarium that does not contain expansive predator anemones. Peppermint Shrimp is commonly known as a sweeper shrimp and keeping it has its advantages. One of which is it will swim around and clean your aquarium.
Peppermint Shrimp eats aiptasia and numerous other pests that affect the general condition of your aquarium. Due to their diet, sweeper shrimp will maintain the cleanliness of your aquarium thus reducing the need for you to use aquarium pesticide.
They require small spots where they can hide because they have the tendency to stay away from other inhabitants. The shrimps are active mostly during the night and during the day they hide behind rocks and corals. They will come out when it is feeding time when they tend to swim freely in the water column.
Also known as…
Peppermint shrimps are also known as Caribbean Cleaner Shrimp, Veined Shrimp or Candy Cane Shrimp because of their appearance. They grow up to five cm long and their bodies are semi-transparent with light pink to red stripes across it.
In their natural environment, these shrimps like to live close to the reefs where the temperature stays in the low seventies. Peppermint shrimp can be found in the Caribbean Sea.
Having Peppermint shrimps in your aquarium
The Peppermint Shrimp (Lysmata Wurdemanni) is best known for its ability to clean the anemone. Although it is considered to be an important member of the “clean-up crew” (CUC) – the aquarium cleaning team, it is more of a creature that feeds detritus, food debris, and decomposing organic material.
Peppermint Shrimp is brightly colored, with a creamy white body with thin and distinctive longitudinal red strips. Due to this aspect, it can easily be confused with another shrimp species called Lysmata Rathbunae. Differentiation of the two species is very difficult in terms of external appearance. Lysmata Rathbunae has a darker tail, no visible stripes and a darker body. Another difference is that Lysmata Rathbunae does not feed on aiptasia, whereas Lysmata Wundermanni is a great consumer of such algae.
They are exceptionally normal in most salt seas and they even have a kind of stable eating routine for a shrimp that lives in such waters.
Peppermint Shrimp can be aggressive
In case you’re considering getting peppermint shrimp for your aquarium, keep in mind that you may want to get only a few individuals in a large tank or just one for a smaller tank because they tend to become very aggressive with each other. Their tank size ought to be at least ten gallons.
Water condition
They adjust effortlessly so they don’t stress over an excessive number of issues concerning the water conditions. The pH ought to be 8.4 and the temperature of the tank ought to be close to seventy-four degrees.
The Peppermint Shrimp is best suited to a marine aquarium with live stone, plenty of hiding places and open spaces to look for food. They are nocturnal creatures and rarely can be seen during the day as they are hiding from predators. But at night they go out of hiding in search of food.
Peppermint shrimps are very sociable and peaceful to other aquarium inhabitants. Attention, it seems to be biting from coral, so it is recommended to keep yourself in a marine aquarium only with fish and not in a reef type.
Information on breeding
Peppermint shrimp are a hermaphrodite type of shrimp, individuals having both male and female sexual organs, and they can replicate rather quickly. Mating happens regularly after the shrimp have shed, laying a small number of eggs that in the beginning they will be blue in color and after around 12 days they will swing to a silver-like color, which shows they are prepared for hatching. They will hatch once they have turned silver and they will hatch at night and after that, the little shrimps will swim towards the light.
Having peppermint shrimps in your aquarium is for the most part simple to deal with. They eat the Aiptasia anemones that develop in the aquarium and other ailing tissues and things of that comparing. They require a temperature of 70 degrees and can be housed with other Peppermint shrimps (5 gallons for each shrimp.) As well as some other kind of fish, they will not be chased and eaten by any other fish, rare cases may occur with some aggressive fish species.
Peppermint shrimp are pretty and will add some pleasant shading to your aquarium and keep it clean in the meantime.
Feeding of the Peppermint Shrimp
Like other invertebrates, Peppermint shrimp does not tolerate large nitrate and copper levels and changes in water parameters. Because it plucks the shell, it needs iodine supplements to help in this process. Like food, it consumes aiptasia although it seems to prefer to consume smaller anemones than big ones. If it does not have enough source of food, you can supplement the diet with food or fresh fish.
They can feed on granules and flakes that they will search for on the bottom of the aquarium, through the substrate, also will consume Aiptasia anemones, but if they are too large, shrimp will ignore them. They are known to feed on dead fish tissues, so they are useful in cleaning them, they will even eat dead skin particles from the human hand.
In the end, we can say that
It is a shrimp that many people will look for because of its beautiful appearance, it is useful in the aquarium because it helps to clean it and can also clean the fish of dead epithelial tissues. If there are more than two individuals in the aquarium they can become aggressive and if only one can become shy. It is recommended not to keep you together with aggressive fish species.
They are recommended for beginner saltwater shrimp keepers because they are easy to look after and undemanding. If you are breeding for sale, you can get a good value for them.
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