Peppermint shrimp?

[aqua-nut]

Bought two peppermint. One is quite blue. Is this a peppermint?

 

[Spoon]

Never seen that..hmmm. Looks cool! Free bump!

As long as it's not one of those troublesome camel back ones.

 

[aqua-nut]

I was going to put them directly in DT but saw the blue and got freaked!

They are going into a QT so I can really see what they are. The other one is darker red than I've ever seen before.
Perhaps I can get a better pic after they are in.

 

[Marc]

Maybe molting? Do SW shrimp molt even?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk.

 

[aqua-nut]

Do SW shrimp molt even?

Yep, they do molt. Perhaps that's it. Anyway they are going to QT till I'm positive.

 

[bluprntguy]

Google the differences between peppermint and camelback shrimp. Most LFS's tend to sell them interchangeably or because they don't know the difference. Peppermints are probably what you want.

The clear/blue color is probably just stress. They tend to change color at night.

 

[euod]

Nice peppermint shrimp.

 

[Ahruk]

Yeah peppermints change color when stressed especially if they are against a white background. They feel exposed so they change colors to compensate. Put some rock in there or cover and he'll change back.

 

[Kensington Reefer]

John
Look up Lysmata wurdemanni
These are the proper species to eat aptasia

 

[aqua-nut]

John
Look up Lysmata wurdemanni
These are the proper species to eat aptasia

Thanks. I think that's what they are. Now they look much more like what I was expecting. The blue tail threw me off. Musta been panic or molt colors.

 

[BAYMAC]

Thanks. I think that's what they are. Now they look much more like what I was expecting. The blue tail threw me off. Musta been panic or molt colors.

Actually, look up Dr Andrew Rhynes work on them as he did a lot of work on the genus. Much of what the trade gets is Lysmata boggessi.

http://decapoda.nhm.org/pdfs/27306/27306.pdf

 

[aqua-nut]

Thanks. I skimmed it. Mostly looked at the pretty pictures!

Short of having a dissecting microscope, I don't think I have any chance to distinguish among them.

 

[HiFidelity]

Not sure if this helps for future reference but it works pretty darn well for me;

The way I can tell camel shrimp apart from pepps is the color PATTERN, I know that they can look similar and aside from the pronounced hump shape on the tail of the camel shrimp I found that if you look straight down (sort of a bird's eye view of the shrimp) you can see red bands running horizontally across the pepp's tail, this pattern is something that isn't there on camel shrimp, instead the camel has lines which tend to appear more random.

You can see this in the photo John posted, distinct bands across the shrimp's tail even on the little guy who's lost his color just and it's a little less obvious but I still see the distinct pattern there...

I also second the notion that this lighter colored shrimp is just a scared or stressed little fella, I've picked them up before and they were nice & bright before netting then once I get home open the container and everyone's gone transparent. After a couple of hours in the DT and once they find places to hide, bright color again. My best guess is this is defensive behavior because once they take on this transparent color they are very hard to see against rocks (they just blend in) so perhaps it's completely normal behavior since I haven't seen it happen in DT where they are comfortable and have no predators.

I absolutely love peppermint shrimp and have developed quite the interest in them I wish I could have more time for this hobby as I would absolutely love to attempt to breed these little guys, for fun...

 

[BAYMAC]

The question isn't "is it a camel shrimp" as that is a known... it very much is not.

The question is, which Lysmata species is it? Some don't eat aptasia.