Coral Eating Starfish!

platapus · 09-17-2002, 09:58 AM

Does anyone know how to rid a reeftank of these fast reproducing starfish? ...or a website that I can find more info on them?

Here is a document that I found on them:
http://www.garf.org/STAR/starfish.html

Alice · 09-17-2002, 10:30 AM

There are different species of these kinds of stars. Most of them are not corallivores but beneficial algae eaters. I know that many people have them in their tanks without any problems. How to tell the good from the bad? I don't know, unfortunately.

I do know that some people have used Harlequin shrimp in their tanks to prey on the stars. Harleqiun shrimp only feed on the tube feet of starfish though so if the population of the mini-stars is depleted, you are faced with the unpleasant task of feeding the shrimp.

Hopefully someone can post some good links or more first-hand info for you.

Alice

platapus · 09-17-2002, 10:37 AM

These are in a friend of mines 150 gallon. This is just a generice picture, and not a picture of theones he has.

I gave him a colony of athillias ( waving coral) and they devorored it in one night! I believe that he has the bad ones! All I can find out, is to use the Harliquine shrimp to control them.

Alice · 09-17-2002, 10:41 AM

Eewwww, that doesn't sound like harmless algae eaters!

Are there too many for him to manually remove them?

platapus · 09-17-2002, 10:45 AM

He has (Hundreds) of them...seriuosly. THey are everywere, sump, pumps, rocks, glass, sand. Im thinking that his only solution will be to drop in som Harliquine Shrimp, wing them on them, ...after they begin to hunt then on there own, manually remove most of the population, and let the shrimp hunt for the hiding ones!

tdwyatt · 09-18-2002, 07:03 AM

Actually, the only effective way to really rid the tank of them is to start each Monday (or Sunday, just pick a day and use that day each week...) and pick them out with a pair of jawed forceps (you will need a pair of these). The harlequin shrimp will work eventually, but then there is the problem of dealing with the shrimps, and they WILL find something to eat in your tank, usually some specie of your favorite small polyp stony that you can no longer find in the market (personal experience). Yes, the manuao removal is tedious, tes it is very time consum8ing, and yess, it will take a while, but it works, after a few weeks, it gets to the point where you only have to remove a few (just remove them each time you see them). These seastars reproduce fia fission, so they will continue to multiply unless you get them all, and this will take a while. Harlequins have a bad tendancy to "harvest" a few of the seastars and consume them in private, meaning that they may keep you from finding all of them.

My 2 cents (US) and experience...