asterina stafish eating palys ans zoas.

[malawiman]

Ive noticed a few of my favorite zoas and palys closing up and slowly dieing or whilting. as of recently ive notice a great increase in the asterina starfish population. soon after the pop boom the the paly death increased. in the past week i have removed alot of these starfish directly off of the whilting mouths. the most affected were the following, devils armor,rpe,pe,nuc green,toxic green rings,calypsos,tubbs blue and purple puddle's. luckly i realized the issue before it got out of hand. ive read that there are many diferent species of these "asterina stars" and Ive noticed color diferences. the darker blueish/white ones are the worst. they say that some are good and some are bad. im pulling all of the ones i see :thumbsup:. here are a few pics of the ones i removed this morning.

 

[kyrin01]

i had the same problem a few years ago in my 40b. i could never get rid of all the asterinas even tho i pulled them off the glass and rocks every time i saw them. i did that for almost a year and never really saw any decline in numbers. I tore the tank down and cooked the rocks. (there was more reasons) No asterinas since!! Unfortunatley i had to take it to the most extreme method.

 

[mscarpena]

You could be thinking of this the wrong way. Your zoo's and palys could be dieing from other reasons and the stars could be eating them as they are dieing. I have many of the same colored Asterina stars with no issues what so ever. You maybe right, but just look for other causes your zoo and palys deaths do not get out of hand. Good luck.

 

[R_Hudson]

If your that worried and there's that many borrow a harlequin shrimp from someone in your local club or buy one. Just be prepared to feed it once the asternas are gone. It took a small one roughly a month to erradicate my 30cube of close to 1000stars. Just my .02

 

[highpower9979]

get a harlequin shrimp they eat those things like crazy

 

[malawiman]

ive read that about harliquin shimp but after 8 pep shrimps just diapeared in my display i would hate to lose a shrimp as sweet as the harliquin.

 

[malawiman]

update. i removed as many of the stars as i could see, im actually still removing them everyday. i relocated many of the affected corals to another display and made sure to remove any hitchhiker stars. the isolated corals have come back strong and are already multiplying. ive come to the conclusion that the asterina starfish became over populated and they were just seeking out food. ive had these stars since i started in the hobby and never noticed a problem untill now.

 

[BeanMachine]

Hey Malawiman- Do you have a thread of your display. 500+!!! I'd love to see that.

 

[malawiman]

Hey Malawiman- Do you have a thread of your display. 500+!!! I'd love to see that.

i do. thanks for the interest. http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1729004

 

[jbird69]

Hmmm What a coincidence!

http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1755804