Asterina Eating SPS? Please help!

[montiman]

Hey everyone. Recently I have been having a hard time with all of my SPS in my large tank. I had a few colonies that were growing nicely, but one by one all of the pieces have started to die. This started about 3 months ago. I have tried many things to fix the problem, but every time I think I've fixed it I wake up to find another white patch on one of my SPS. I know people will want more details on my system so here they are.

120 gallon tank 48x24x24

Lighting-2 kessil A360Ws (for you led haters I have SPS growing in my other tank with a kessil but not in this one) and 2 54watt t5s (2 months old lagoon blue and 10k)

Amonia-0

Nitrite-0

Nitrate-10 (This is fairly recent. it was zeroed out but I decided to switch from sugar to biopellets and have experienced a nitrate spike with a little cyanobacteria. It has been up for 3 weeks so I realize I need to wait for the pellets to take full effect.

Phosphate-Undetectable

KH- 10 dkh

Calcium-435ppm

Magnesium-1350 ppm

Salinity-1.026

Temp-79 F

pH- 8-8.2

I think that something has been eating the SPS. I originally thought that it was nudibranchs or red bugs but I have not seen any even at night. I then thought it was my urchins so I removed them but the SPS are still dying. The only thing left that I can think of are the many Asterina Stars. I have heard mixed answers about whether or not they eat coral but it is the best I've got at this point. What do you guys think? I am also thinking about getting a harlequin shrimp to eat them, but I already have brittle stars and a sea cucumber and Im not sure if they will eat them as well.

Any help is very appreciated. I have SPS in my other tank and I work at an LFS where we propagate SPS so its not like I'm new to these animals. I have exhausted every possibility I can think of besides the stars, but I have never known them to hurt anything.

 

[AcroporAddict]

I have never heard of asterinas eating SPS corals. I cannot say it would not happen, but I have asterinas in my 465 gallon SPS tank and I haven't seen that.

 

[SenseiSays]

Very few do eat coral, but possible none the less

 

[SenseiSays]

And just quarantine the ones you don't want the shrimp to eat. It'll go through the population pretty fast

 

[montiman]

Ok I think I will work on trying to get a Harlequin to eat them. I have been wanting to add a shrimp anyway and Harlequins are my favorite. Does anyone know if they will eat brittle stars or cucumbers? I did find an article saying only about 5% of Asterinas eat coral.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/joomla/index.php/current-issue/article/45-reefkeeping-101-

 

[SenseiSays]

Harlequins will eat any starfish so take out what you want to keep, and as far as a cucumber idk but possibly

 

[montiman]

I've heard that the Harlequins will eat the tubefeet of any echinoderm even the weird ones like cucumbers, featherstars, and sealilys, but I have also heard they are fine. If anyone has a cucumber or brittle star with theirs could they please chime in?

 

[SenseiSays]

Brittle star would be lunch meat, just take them out better to be safe than sorry. You don't need to set up a extravagant tank for them, they don't use much oxygen and will be okay in not pristine water for a short time

 

[montiman]

Well the problem is not having a place for the stars once they are out. It is getting the brittle star out that crams itself into the crack in the big piece of live rock at the very base of my rock structure. I would also like to keep all of the animals in the long run. I could move them to my sump or my little nano tank but I feel the brittle stars would starve in the nano and I would never see them in the sump. The cucumber either needs to stay in the display or go back to the LFS. There is no place with enough sand for him besides the display. I suppose that I could eventually return the stars to the display after the Asterinas are gone and then move the Harlequin to the nano.

 

[AcroporAddict]

Well the problem is not having a place for the stars once they are out. It is getting the brittle star out that crams itself into the crack in the big piece of live rock at the very base of my rock structure. I would also like to keep all of the animals in the long run. I could move them to my sump or my little nano tank but I feel the brittle stars would starve in the nano and I would never see them in the sump. The cucumber either needs to stay in the display or go back to the LFS. There is no place with enough sand for him besides the display. I suppose that I could eventually return the stars to the display after the Asterinas are gone and then move the Harlequin to the nano.

Realistically, you will probably never be completely rid of asterinas in your 120. Harleys control them, but in general do not eliminate them, IME. Perhaps in a small reef, but if you have any appreciable amount of LR in the tank, there will be places they cannot reach all the asterinas.

 

[a.browning]

I just found an asterina munching on my branching porites frag overnight. Until this point I had never seen them on sps before. They do eat my zoanthids too. I really do not like those starfish! I pull them out anytime I see them. Good luck getting rid of them.

 

[montiman]

I have just remembered that there is another kind of harlequin shrimp that does not only eat stars, the bumblebee shrimp. Has anyone ever used these to get rid of asterinas? I want something that will stay in the tank long term in case the stars ever come back, and I am intimidated by the idea of buying live stars all the time.