That's only kinda true. A lot of people get their peppermints from a LFS which has 1-2 in a tank or from online and who knows how they have them stored there, and they get them and they'll only pick at the small aiptasia. In that instance, you're spot on, they'll only eat small ones.
However, they appear to be able to learn to eat the large aiptasia and some sellers have started using 15-20 in a single clear bottom tank to clean up their live rock before they sell it. Once one of them figures out that it can tap the aiptasia to make it close up, then the others seem to pick up on it and start going to town. If you can find someone who does this with their live rock and buy one of those peppermint shrimp off them, odds are good that they'll continue to eat all sizes of aiptasia afterwards.
My last tank I did this and had a massive aiptasia (bigger than the one in my photo album on here) and it walked right up, tapped it a couple times so it sucked into it's hole, and then it evicerated it. My current tank I just bought two peppermints from Live Aquaria and they won't touch the big or even the medium ones in my tank.
So long story short, they can and will eat even massive aiptasia but you have to either find one that learned how in a community tank or get really lucky.
Originally Posted by BK's Reef
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