Attack of the itsy titsy starfish, oh my!

[Madjack]

I have an outbreak of small 1/8" undeveloped starfish that love my zoo's and my green star polyps.

Is their an natural enemy of these starfish that would be safe in a reef tank with SPS and LPS corals?

 

[guinness0514]

harlequin shrimp, but they can starve if you run out of the starfish. Manual removal might be best.

 

[fishtankdon]

Yes, these starfish seem to be taking over lots of tanks. Suck them out during water changes.

 

[BusyB]

kill em' when ya see em'

 

[FOSELONE]

+1 on a harlequin shrimp...just need to find him a home when hes done...

 

[chris.francis14]

Is there a pic of these star fish? I have small white ones in my tank with 5-7 legs. I just want to make sure they are not the same ones you are talking about.

 

[guinness0514]

Astrina starfish I believe there are difference species...some ok some not...

 

[tent boy]

I found 2 of those bad boys on my zoanthids. They were much larger than ones I had seen before in the tank. I dont know if they were eating the zoas, but they certainly appeared to be up to no good. I removed them from the tank.

 

[guinness0514]

They are just about every glance of my tank if you look hard enough, but I have yet to see them to any harm. I have plenty of zoas and palys. Not hurt a one. I don't like them crawling on the SPS...I remove them sometimes. I almost ordered two harlequin but realized they would go after my sand sifter and didn't buy him for food, so I didn't. They give me no problem so far. I would says there are easily 100's to 1000's in my 29g cube...(EDIT: OK, maybe 100's...)

 

[ehren78]

I manually removed about 20-30 or so of them last weekend. It's even a PITA to manually remove them. I used a needle, had to poke them atleast 1 time to get them to let go of whatever they're holding onto. I would rather get a harlequin shrimp like suggested. Then pass it forward to another reefer,