Peppermint Shrimp - Giant

Giant Peppermint Shrimp, Lysmata seticaudata was originally described from specimens collected at Key West, Florida and Charleston, South Carolina. Is a reef safe cleaning animal which consumes parasites and dead or diseased tissue from other animals. According to the study "Ability of Monaco shrimp (Peppermint Shrimp) Lysmata seticaudata (Decapoda: Hippolytidae) to control the pest glass anemone Aiptasia pallida", by Ricardo Calado and Luis Narciso, (...) "the ability of wild and cultured Monaco shrimp (Peppermint Shrimp) Lysmata seticaudata to control the glass anemone Aiptasia pallida. Starved shrimp ingested the highest percentages of glass anemones [85.7% and 89.3% for wild (W) and cultured (C) shrimp, respectively]. The absence of symbiotic zooxanthellae in glass anemones did not influence the shrimps’ feeding rate, with shrimp offered aposymbiotic anemones displaying the same feeding percentages (67.3% and 70.7% for W and C shrimp, respectively) as those offered sea anemones with symbiotic zooxanthellae (70.0% and 74.4% for W and C shrimp, respectively).That cultured Peppermint shrimp are as efficient as wild ones in Aiptasia pallida control and should be preferred to other wild organisms."