Unwanted pests

[mbalcer]

I have a 30 gallon tank up and running for about 5 months now, it is good shape with great water quality. I have a six line wrasse, saddleback clown, percula clown, and a lawnmower blenny. Also some hermits and snails. the fish all get along great. I had a sand sifter star, but it got killed in about 3 weeks. All anyone has told me is that it is probably some unwanted crabs or other pest from the live rock. What can i do to get rid of these pests? or is there another explanation?

 

[Andrew]

[welcome]

Your start could have died of many reasons. The only real way to get pest such as crabs from your rock is to pull it out, put it in a bucket with an SG level of 1.030 and they inverts won't like the salt level and come out of the rock. Make sure theres no hermits or snails you want on the rock before doing this. No corals either. Please post your water levels. Maybe someone can explain the whole getting pest out of the rock better then I can.

 

[Paintbug]

a sand sifter star in a 30g that hasnt been running long, sounds like starvation to me. those things need lots of attablished sand to survive. it could have been a crab or something but not as likely.

 

[bertoni]

You can use traps to try to catch pest animals. I wouldn't count on a high-salinity dip to catch them all, and the dip would likely kill a number of animals in the process.

The starfish might have died due to acclimation stress or damage, or been killed, or for any number of reasons. Was it ripped apart when found?

 

[Scuba_Steve]

stars are very intolerant to bad water quality, so if was in the tank before it had fully cycled then that was prob the cause