How do I get rid of brittle stars.

[Diamandi]

I have a lit of brittle stars on my violet gorgonia coral
Those stars are not harming the coral, but large number of baby-stars is preventing polips from being fulli open and I'm affraid that this may have negative effect.

I've tried introducing harlequin shrimp, but it doesn't help. So my question is: is here any good way of how to get rid of those brittle stars?

Thanks for your answers.

 

[SNAKEMANVET]

I remove them by hand,they can get out of hand quick and steal food from polyps.

 

[velvetelvis]

Depending on your fish population and tank size, you might could introduce a small dottyback~such as an orchid~to pick them off. Orchids are beautiful, peaceful (for a dottyback!) and no threat to corals, and IMO would complement the coloring of many NPS corals very well.

 

[rekn]

dottybacks and most wrasses eat them like candy

 

[murraycamp]

I have a lit of brittle stars on my violet gorgonia coral
Those stars are not harming the coral, but large number of baby-stars is preventing polips from being fulli open and I'm affraid that this may have negative effect.

I've tried introducing harlequin shrimp, but it doesn't help. So my question is: is here any good way of how to get rid of those brittle stars?

Thanks for your answers.

Last week, I had the great experience of getting a behind the scenes tour of Atlantis Marine World in Riverhead, NY and the opportunity to visit with Todd Gardner, one of the staff marine biologists. He has a very cool NPS reef on display (sorry for the crappy pic):



He was having the same problem. Due to the high feeding level, small brittle stars were multiplying at a high rate and covered some of the gorgs to the extent the polyps couldn't open. IIRC, he dealt with it by manual removal finally had to change out the sand bed.

Another idea would be a harlequin shrimp, but I have no idea if they would eat brittle stars as opposed to Asterina spp.

 

[murraycamp]

Sorry - re-read your OP re harlequins. I guess that answers that question.

 

[Diamandi]

Well, I've got 2 orchids, yellow wrasse and 6-line wrasse, hope that'll help.

Thank you for help anyway!

 

[digitalman0111]

I have the same problem, the harlequin is the answer. I have him for two months my starfish keep under control.

 

[stunreefer]

I have the same problem, the harlequin is the answer.

Did you read the original post?

 

[mndfreeze]

Bongo shrimp exclusivly feed on brittle stars, similar to harlequins to normal sea stars...

 

[C. Schuhmacher]

HI

There is also an easy way to remove them if you make a coral dip
that will kill every brittle star on the corals

 

[alexruegamer]

like fm pestcontrol

grüße alex

 

[Matt_Wandell]

Bongo shrimp exclusivly feed on brittle stars, similar to harlequins to normal sea stars...

Bongo shrimp are very very (very) tiny. As a biological control for brittle stars I expect they'd be about as effective in a reef tank as Berghia nudibranchs are for Aiptasia. They'd almost certainly disappear in a tank with fish/powerheads/etc pretty quickly.

I had a pair of these shrimp that spawned every 2 weeks for a few months. They were fed one micro brittle star a piece per day. I imagine they'd hardly make a dent in a large reef tank unless you had several pairs.

FWIW I have thousands of micro brittles in my tank too--never really considered it a bad thing. I would imagine Halichoeres wrasses would eat them up.