Asterina Stars

[em805]

Does anyone know if these guys have a natural predators? I am having trouble keeping up with the reproductive rate of these guys in my tank. I tried a coral banded shrimp (read in another thread it preyed on Asterina) but, so far he doesn't touch them. I'm hoping someone knows of a fish that eats them...

 

[Fat Man]

Harlequin shrimp feed on stars, I don't know how effective they'd be.

 

[em805]

Thanks Fat Man, I did a little more digging after posting this and found that these guys have at least three possible predators:

Harlequin shrimp
Coral banded shrimp
Nardoa sea star

My question to you is does the Harlequin shrimp need a sand bed to survive or is it simply a matter of making it more comfortable? Also, do I need to buy a pair or is one shrimp OK? I plan to use them to eradicate the Asterinas them move them to my 60g with which has a sand bed.

 

[Fat Man]

Harlequin shrimp will need to have a continual supply of some type of seastar as that is all they eat.

 

[kar93]

you could try a harlequin shrimp for a while and once your probelm is sorted you could keep it if your willing to meet its needs or send it back to the store

 

[em805]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11202559#post11202559 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by kaneryles
you could try a harlequin shrimp for a while and once your probelm is sorted you could keep it if your willing to meet its needs or send it back to the store

Yea but, will the harlequin shrimp be OK in a bare bottom tank?

 

[mscarpena]

Try selling the people pay good $$ for them almost $1.00 per star.

 

[NanoReefWanabe]

i dont think they need sand...i havent seen them burrow in the store tanks...but they do a bang up job eating starfish...and they are aggressive hunters too...non will survive it fury..and they are beautiful too...my coral banded shrimp doesnt touch them in my tank..

i have heard of people keeping them alive by feeding legs off a plain jane starfish...just have a bunch living in a tank and tear a leg of one every other day...they grow back and if you have enough stars you never run out of food...but i could never bring myself to do that to an animal..

 

[Znut Reefer]

I have a harlequin in my 550. He's been in there for several months. Eating those small star fish. And my tank is BB. So you'll be fine to get one.

 

[blenny90]

We have an overpopulation of the asterina stars and they are feeding on the zoas. I picked 7 off of one colony last night and then realized they were everywhere. We have some peppermints and 2 cleaner shrimp in our 210. If we got a couple of harlequin shrimp, would they be in danger of being eaten by our existing shrimp? With the price of the harlequins, I wouldn't want them to end up being the prey.