Killer starfish :( Any help?

P

pws

Premium Member
I bought my LR from a local guy. Thought I got a good deal but I really got ripped off. Rock was full of bad stuff. First it was bad anemone. Try 25 on one small rock alone. The tank wasn't taken care of and I thought I could clean the rock up good enough.

Well I got all the bad anemone all gone I believe. I also got it all algae free besides a couple strands of the brown string type of algae that I am not sure what is but it blows off the rock very easy and only got one very small spot that comes back.. Also getting tons of coralline algae on it now and looking really good. I also have tons and tons of good serpent star fish.

BUT...

I got killer starfish that came with the rock... I don't know what to do to get rid of them. When removing the rock the guy had tons of dead coral and he said he had a crash awhile ago and never removed them. So I found out over the last week the real reason why he lost all his sps. It is because of these black coral eating star fish. I will post pics once I get home but wiped out one 2" frag and now found one on my birds of paradise and also on my pink cat paw eating away!

Anyone know any way to get these out beside picking them out every time you see one or do I need to sell this rock to a fish only with LR setup person and tear down and start over? Let me know what you think.
Thanks
 
MeVsTheWorld said:
+1:fun2:
Click to expand...

is it one big star? or lots of little ones? do not get a Harlequin for one star, the shrimp will starve. I've had little stars, never at corals... but did keep a harlequin well fed. its all a balance. Harlequin shrimp will keep the stars numbers low, save the coral... but this could be a good thing for you, as you can actually support this awesome shrimp!
 
USAF427 said:
is it one big star? or lots of little ones? do not get a Harlequin for one star, the shrimp will starve. I've had little stars, never at corals... but did keep a harlequin well fed. its all a balance. Harlequin shrimp will keep the stars numbers low, save the coral... but this could be a good thing for you, as you can actually support this awesome shrimp!
Click to expand...

Seems like they're all over his tank..:worried2:
 
What else do harlequin's eat? I have never done any research on them so I am totally at a loss for their diet.
 
Wow good there is something to eat them. There is no chance it would starve in my tank. I got the white starfish that are ok to have then these black ones and both have a like 100 babies at all times in the tank. I didn't get a chance to upload a pic. I will see if I can get it emailed to me at work. When they are small it doesn't seem to eat on the coral. They start out as babies and then once they get the size of a nickel or a little bigger they start eating on the coral. I lost a Pink & Blue Pocillipora that was a 2" frag, 1/8" of my 1" frag of bird of paradise, and the growth off the frag plug on my pink Pocillipora so far..

I think the guy I bought this rock from had super egg laying starfish. When I went to pick up the rock the tank was dirty so couldn't see in too good but there was starfish the white ones all over the glass like every inch of glass was a starfish. I dosed the tank with Red slime remover and it stunned the serpent starfish and I gave up when I counted 600. Its crazy how many starfish of all kinds are in this rock.

Anyone know where I can get one of these shrimp?
 
From my experience, Harlequin's tend to go after the slower moving starfish. It may not eat the "killer starfish" if it is fast moving.
 
pws said:
Wow good there is something to eat them. There is no chance it would starve in my tank. I got the white starfish that are ok to have then these black ones and both have a like 100 babies at all times in the tank. I didn't get a chance to upload a pic. I will see if I can get it emailed to me at work. When they are small it doesn't seem to eat on the coral. They start out as babies and then once they get the size of a nickel or a little bigger they start eating on the coral. I lost a Pink & Blue Pocillipora that was a 2" frag, 1/8" of my 1" frag of bird of paradise, and the growth off the frag plug on my pink Pocillipora so far..

I think the guy I bought this rock from had super egg laying starfish. When I went to pick up the rock the tank was dirty so couldn't see in too good but there was starfish the white ones all over the glass like every inch of glass was a starfish. I dosed the tank with Red slime remover and it stunned the serpent starfish and I gave up when I counted 600. Its crazy how many starfish of all kinds are in this rock.

Anyone know where I can get one of these shrimp?
Click to expand...

Dude that's an insane amount of starfish. Holy starfish batman!!
 
Here is some pics of all the serpent stars. Was crazy how many. They were all stunned by the red smile remover. They all lived. A few lost a couple arms from them being clumped together like that. I thought at the time they were mating but guess it is a side effect from using the red slime remover.
DSC00720.jpg

DSC00730.jpg

DSC00729.jpg

DSC00722.jpg
 
I believe that harlequin shrimp will only eat starfish with tube feet - so I'm not sure they would eat those. Maybe someone who has experience with them can chime in. Maybe some type of wrasse would eat them?
 
Last edited:
SaltwaterAdict said:
Is there any other way?
Click to expand...

Not sure other than manual removal but, we all know how hard that would be. I read if you have an aggressive tank you can try a Huma Huma Trigger however, I'm not sure if that's true or not. I guess that would require some research. The only thing I've used for removal was Harlequin shrimp but I was also removing astera's.
 
The serpent starfish are fine they hide and eat leftover food. They are great to have in a reef tank.
 
I loved my serpent star until my LFS told me they'll eat my fish. I never had a problem with mine but, I took it to the LFS because they swore I might not have any problems yet but I would.
 
Holy crap that's a lot of starfish... I've never seen an infestation like that.. I have no experience with this but right off the bat, I'd siphon out those clumps with a 3/4" or 1" hose. There's got to be some sort of predator that would finish them off. Maybe some sort of crab or something. I've read that harlequins really prefer Linkia and chocolate chip starfish..
 
The baby serpents are fine. They are really good for a tank. They hide all the time and reach out and get left over food. No food in my tank is left over. They are always hidden in the rocks where you don't even see but one or two every couple days. It is these black with white starfish that are the problem. I got an email out to some LFS to see if they got any Harlequin shrimp or can get any in. Anyone ever see these at any of our LFS?
 
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