Shrimp ate my Trumpet Coral..Help!

[Wolfsblood]

I now absolutely hate peppermint shrimp and will be catching these little bastards tomorrow and taking them to my LFS. Yes they are Peppermints and not Camels. Here is what they did

Is there any saving this frag? The head in the middle is toast, the one on the left side has a little bite taken out of it. What should I do to improve this little guys chances?

 

[Sniperhank]

The shrimp wont eat a healthy coral. Something else caused the death, they just clean it up.

 

[Wolfsblood]

The frag looked great at the store and the second I put it in my tank the shrimp ran up to it and started ripping pieces out of it.

 

[bettaowner]

Do you have any pictures of the coral before you added it?

 

[mr_X]

...and pictures of the alleged peppermint shrimp..

 

[Wolfsblood]

Dont have before pics of the coral but it looked really pretty and was fully opened. I spent about an hour staring at the frag tank to pic out the nicest ones. Here is the shrimp

 

[Sniperhank]

Def a peppermint shrimp. Still want to lean towards the fact that the head wasn't doing well and they were just doing their job. I have never heard or experienced a shrimp do anything but be passive and peaceful.

 

[Sniperhank]

I'm coming back to this after staring into my tank. Was the coral fully inflated in the store or was it sitting there without skeleton showing?

 

[Wolfsblood]

It's not that I don't believe that the coral may have had something going on with it, I just wonder if the shrimp could have known so quickly that something was up. The coral was fully inflated at the store, the outer heads were about the size of a quarter and the middle was about nickel sized.

Is there anything I can do to salvage some of it? The head on the right doesn't seem to have any visible damage.

 

[Sniperhank]

Odd. Yes, the shrimp would have known. I stick my hand in my tank and I'm officially free of dead skin and hangnails, and as soon as I'm in reach.

The coral will recover with perfect and spot on parameters. I killed 2 colonies and almost a third, the third came back to thrive from what I thought what was only skeleton left.

 

[Wolfsblood]

Ok I will leave it alone then. Should I keep it in the corner without much light and just let it do its thing?

 

[Sniperhank]

With it being slightly damaged, I would ease it into things. Slowly moving it into more lighting. Let it be for now.

 

[Voshon247]

I heard about such stories u really have to watch out when it comes to peppermint shrimps and lps. That why I won't be adding one to my new 125 g soon to be reef

 

[randy07]

I've also had problems with them. I had two that devoured anything I added to the tank. I added an anemone and as soon as I set it on a rock they started tearing into it. Not just cleaning it but ripping holes into its flesh causing it to deflate I had to take them out.

 

[Wolfsblood]

Im going to get them out tomorrow. I was never all that fond of them they are just cheap and I had that buy something for my tank itch. I am going to just stick with snails from here on out.

 

[randy07]

I would recommend the skarlett cleaner shrimp. There pretty cool. They just clean stuff and don't try to eat coral. Im wanting to get a blood red fire shrimp to go with him but I've read they are territorial. The shrimp i have now is the longest living resident iv had so I don't want to do anything to hurt him.

 

[randy07]

And good luck getting them out. Its not the easiest thing to do.