Asterina Anomal outbreak

[buddy08]

ive been finding these guys for about 2 months now.. first were some bigger starfish with 3-4 legs, and now im finding smaller ones with roughly 5 legs or even more... everytime i see one, i pick it out of the aquarium and kill it. come home today and found 6 of these fellas on one rock, all are less than 2mm wide so theyre obviously spawns or offsprings of these things. are they reef safe? i have some lps, sps, and soft corals and am beginning to think these guys may be a root cause of whats bothering my kenya tree coral. if it is, and these arent reef safe... how can i get rid of them?

 

[Marines_Wife]

Harlequin Shrimp will decimate the population

 

[buddy08]

what if i have a linkia star and brittle star?

 

[Marines_Wife]

Other than manual removal every time you see them I am not aware of anything else that will go through them like a harlequin shrimp. I would assume if an abundant food source like the Asternia star is available they would leave your other stars alone, but I am not the foremost authority on this. Im sure someone else will chime in on that though

 

[little_fish]

No, they will eat the linka first because that is their preferred food source. If you cant move the starfish to another tank while they work on the asterinas then i you are going to have to stick with manual removal.

Remember that they are obligate starfish eaters so once the asterinas are gone if you cant find them a new home you are going to have to provide them with starfish to eat.

 

[buddy08]

would i be able to put my stars in the sump temporarily?

 

[little_fish]

i think so, but they might be down there for awhile and i would worry about the linka getting enough food in that time period

 

[Salty B]

I let my asterinas get to plague proportions. Some got to be as big as a dime and turned into softy eating machines. Kenyas and palau green trees along with a patch of zoos took quite a beating. A couple months ago I got a harlequin and he has brought the star population down to about 25% from where it was. Very cool critter but comes with special requirements as little fish mentioned. Here is a couple short vids of my star assassin.
This is the first day I got him. Swam right over to a big star,ripped it off the glass and had a good snack.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDK0MGyn5ZE]Harlequin shrimp attacking asterina - YouTube[/ame]

Here is a vid of me playing keep away with a star.
[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z23MrZL9H8]playing with harlequin shrimp - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Marines_Wife]

hehhe. Plague proportions. That cracked me up LOL

 

[reeftanker84]

lol thats funny,so far i havent had one asreina yet,thankfully