Pests in large reeftanks

[Jochen]

Hallo everybody,

my name is Jochen and live in Germany. I have been reading here for a long time but this will be my first thread.
I have a 1500gal sytem in my livingroom wihich has been build 1,5 years ago. It is running pretty good however from time to time I am fighting with different kind of pests. Presently I have a big problem with asterinas, which love to eat different kind of corals and zoas. I startet to "harvest" them form time to time with a fishnet on the windos but they sime to be a big big family.
What I am wondering is how to fight pests like this in huge tanks like public aquariums.
Occasionally I find some leopard flatworms, I dont want to know how many they are in the system. I suspect them to eat certain kind of corals as well.
Does anybody have any suggestions about this problem, maybe somebody who´s working in a public aquarium?

The question I aske is, because I might build a large system in the garden sooner or later but one big concern so far is that problem.

Thanks a lot for any help.

Greetings form cold rainy Germany

Jochen

 

[Elliott]

[welcome]

I have the same problem (asterinas) so I'm interested in the responses here. harlequin shrimp are known to eat them but I have no experience with these

 

[Jochen]

doesn´t have anybody problems with asterinas for example? I know that the harlekin shrimp eat them but how about 1000?
Any ideas?

 

[Elliott]

Jochen, I'm told harlequin shrimp do a great job on asternia starfish, I just added one to my tank, so we shall see, I have thousands of asternias that are eating my coral

 

[Jochen]

Hy Elliot,

I think we two are the loosers of the class.
I have two harlekins for one year allready, seems that they cannot handle the problem. If they eat one or two asterinas a day they would be very busy for their life even if the asterinas would not reproduce. I try to catch as many stars as I can everyday, but it seems they don´t get less.
Maybe somebody has a good idea for making some kind of trap for them.

Good luck anyway

Jochen

 

[Elliott]

Jochen, why not add more harlequins?

 

[TROYREEFER]

I had them in my 90gal reef by the hundreds and i got one harlequin shrimp and was hoping it would do the job and with in one week i didn't see any of the stars at all.