coral eating starfish

[0rangeFish]

Yesterday I found my torch coral completely gone. It was perfectly healthy the day before, so it didn't just die. The coral is completely cleaned out, three of the four branches gone and the fourth branch had an extreme hair cut. The only conclusion I could come up with was the red sea star I just put in the tank two weeks ago ate the coral. The problem is red sea stars are peaceful and fine for reefs. I'm at a loss. Has anyone heard of them eating coral?

The sea star is a deep red with black tips and black speckles all over.

The other creatures living in the tank:
got two weeks ago: long tentacle anemone, red sea star
had for 3 months: 2 sebea clowns, 2 banggai cardinals, a yellow fin flasher wrasse, (got the torch coral here)
had for 3 plus years: banned coral shrimp, halloween crab

All tank readings are good.

 

[Calappidae]

That would be a red fromia starfish. Those indeed will not hurt anything as they must rely on the bacterial film algae present in well established tank making them one of the most difficult to keep starfish next to linkicias. These are actually one of the very few if not only starfish that are 100% reef safe due to their specialized diets.

The only other culpret would be the halloween hermit crab if that's what it is.. all crabs (other than filterfeeding and acro crabs) are oppertunistic and when they run out of food they'll go for the easiest target. Blue knuckle and halloween hermit crabs are slightly more aggressive and larger than your typical reef safe hermits sold as clean up crews.

Also is this your first coral? Let alone hard coral? Torch corals are hard corals and need more prestine water quality in calcium, alk, and such along with the main parameters. If this is your first coral it could have been a simple trial and error learning process mistake we all make.

There may even be a hitchhiking pest in your tank somewhere.. inspect the coral for flatworms or other hitchhiking starfish, etc..

 

[0rangeFish]

That's the star fish! The torch coral isn't my first and I've got many others in the tank that are much more difficult to keep. My brain coral did recently die, but I've got a short tentacle plate coral that is as happy as can be. Thats all I have for LSP. The torch coral was one of my most health corals, so I'm very certain he didn't just die. I've had the halloween crab for a while with other coral and he's never bothered them. Haven't seen any bad worms so far and there are one centimeter long white little star fish I notice that have shown up, but they seem harmless. I'll keep looking for other hitchhikers.

I tested my water yesterday the calcium is a little low at 380, but that might be from the water change I did. I was having trouble with the alkalinity test. It's suppose to start out orange and change to green, but mine kept starting out light blue and changing yellow. I just got the kit, so not sure whats up with that. I'm going to ask the fish store to test it for me.

 

[rssjsb]

There may even be a hitchhiking pest in your tank somewhere.. inspect the coral for flatworms or other hitchhiking starfish, etc..

that would be my guess. Could be a Eunice worm or some type of nocturnal crab.