Asterina's are A-Holes, Will Zoa's grow back without a polyp?

3S1K

3S1K

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So I have a Rasta colony that withered away from 13 heads too just 1 head from Zoa Pox I believe. I was able to to get it to grow back to 5 heads and when I thought all was well they all just stared disappearing slowly.

One day noticed some Asterina starfish crawling on what few heads were still opening. The next day the Asterina was wrapped around the polyp and I thought maybe it was just eating some algea off it. I decided to google it and I read a bunch of horror stories of the darker colored Asterina's supposedly killing Zoa colonies. I decided to check to see what colors mine where and apparently every single one was darker colored.

I have had them for years and always wondered why my Zoa colonies would never thrive. With the help of my wife and daughter we spent the next 25min pulling every single one that we found out of the tank. I'm sure there are 100's more but this is we could find at the moment. I found one that was a 1/4" wide.

Anyways my Rasta Colony is basically just a purple mat and I can see a tiny very bright green speck. I was wondering if anyone thinks it will grow into an actual polyp.
 

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It might... until the Matt is gone there is hope... I had the same issue bought a harlequin shrimp and he held them at bay..


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Scsmith2002 said:
It might... until the Matt is gone there is hope... I had the same issue bought a harlequin shrimp and he held them at bay..


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I pulled the frag and brought it to my work tank that is Asterina free. I can't risk them finishing what they started when lights are out in my home tank.

I'll continue to pull them out and if i see no end in sight I'll higher a Harlequin mercenary.

It really bumb me out cause I love Zoa's but never had success with my current tank, now I know why.
 
Personally I have never seen an asternia star fish eat anything not already dead or dying...but hopefully you get the frag back
 
NanoReefWanabe said:
Personally I have never seen an asternia star fish eat anything not already dead or dying...but hopefully you get the frag back
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This.

The odds that your asterina was eating the zoas instead of cleaning up the dead ones with zoa pox is astronomically low in that scenario.

3S1K said:
It really bumb me out cause I love Zoa's but never had success with my current tank, now I know why.
Click to expand...

That's still up for debate since you had sick zoas. Please update this thread if/when you don't see a dramatic turnaround in all your zoas within the next month. If there's no huge dramatic turnaround then they were not the problem, and updating this thread can help others not make the same mistake of killing off a bunch of living things.
 
organism said:
This.

The odds that your asterina was eating the zoas instead of cleaning up the dead ones with zoa pox is astronomically low in that scenario.



That's still up for debate since you had sick zoas. Please update this thread if/when you don't see a dramatic turnaround in all your zoas within the next month. If there's no huge dramatic turnaround then they were not the problem, and updating this thread can help others not make the same mistake of killing off a bunch of living things.
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I agree...chances of it being the starfish and not something else is very low...POX is deadly for zoas, I have no ideas how long it will remain in the tank either...but I would tend to think it more a parameter issue of some sort over the stars...something too high or too low...testing for NO3 and PO4 is almost useless as the kits cannot read what is being used by the organisms in the tank...could be calcium alk mag sg trace elements and ions pH temp flow lighting or any combination of them that won't work for you...every single tank is different...I have yet to be able to grow xenia or gsp in any of my tanks..some would call that a blessing...personally I love them...sadly can't keep it...but please do up date the situation
 
I've had plenty of problems with Asterina starfish and my zoanthids before. While Zoa-Pox can be deadly, I certainly wouldn't rule out those starfish though. (especially that many) There's just way too many horror stories out there not to IMO.
 
The Zoa pox happened in April of last year and was long gone. I noticed the Asterinas sitting on my zoa's in early January of this year.

TBH I'm not 100% he was eating them or eating some dead tissue off it. There is plenty of other stuff for Asterinas to eat in the tank yet there seems to be a few Asterinas that want to eat Zoa's or eat whatever is on the Zoa's.

If I want to have more zoa's I rather just get rid of these hitchhikers that may potentially cause problems later. I rather not take that chance. It's sad cause I really like the Asterinas star fish.
 
It's sad because they may not have been the problem but you still killed them off. imo we owe our tank inhabitants better.
 
With all scavengers, the are opportunistic eaters... most are considered reef safe as they will eat the detritus and or algae first and leave other tank-mates alone .. that being said ... just like it is not likely for a hermit crab to eat Zoas... they will...
I food this article that is worth a read....


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

IMO the best way to keep our ecosystems balanced is with nature order of selection... just like we keep or water balanced by adding reactors and other means.. there are times we need to trim coral and battle non desirable pest such as aptastia, so must be done with an over population of asternia stars..
IMO


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organism said:
It's sad because they may not have been the problem but you still killed them off. imo we owe our tank inhabitants better.
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When I have to clear out my reef tank of pests, I just think of myself as the not reef safe trigger fish of the reef, that I cant already have in there.

If I were a clown trigger who came upon my "piece of reef" in the tank, I would have eradicated them also, for survival.

We owe our tanks a lot, but- survival of the fittest first. Always makes me feel better when killing a bunch of life.
 
Scsmith2002 said:
With all scavengers, the are opportunistic eaters... most are considered reef safe as they will eat the detritus and or algae first and leave other tank-mates alone .. that being said ... just like it is not likely for a hermit crab to eat Zoas... they will...

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Click to expand...

Exactly, I removed a peppermint shrimp from my tank that was eating my Frogspawn. In they end they are wild animals, just ask Siegfried and Roy:lol:
 
Yeah it's also called a striped harlequin.. supposedly it eats asterinas as well as other meaty foods. I couldn't get a harlequin because it would probably eat all my starfish in one day and then starve.
 
Hoopster81 said:
Yeah it's also called a striped harlequin.. supposedly it eats asterinas as well as other meaty foods. I couldn't get a harlequin because it would probably eat all my starfish in one day and then starve.
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Let me know how they work out. I didn't want to get a Harlequin because it would eventually starve and end up giving it away. If the Striped one will eat prepared food that would be a good option.
 
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