Jestersix

Evil Asterina

Mr. Ugly

Mr. Ugly

Past President
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Ok, so you guys know about good vs. evil asterinas?

The tan ones that you see on the glass eat diatoms and are supposed to be ok in your tank.

The ones you see on your corals are supposed to be evil bastages.

Basically, they hang out on what they eat. Zoas or whatever.

Coral eating asterinas tend to have blue and or red speckles on them. Matt from Reefready keeps harlequins in his tanks to keep them under control.

Here's a pic of a red speckled asterina that I found tonight.

DSCN2218.jpg


I had a frag of M. foveolata that lost 1 month of growth today because of this starfish. I saw that 1/3 of the frag was showing skeleton and I kept staring at it thinking that maybe something was wrong with my water. Then I saw the asterina crawling along the bare edge of the monti :(

Grrrr...
 
That sucks! I recently found some chewing on some of my zoas/palys! I've now been scared of any of them :p Harlequins can keep them in check huh?
 
The tans have been ok when I had a softie tank. They would be all over the glass eating diatoms. I had zoas in the tank and they never touched them.

I've heard of several people having probs with the red/blue ones eating zoas.

Harlequins eat em up. But I don't know how hard it is to keep those shrimp. Kind of a pain to maintain food for them. I do like harlequins though. Cool looking shrimp.
 
I pulled a big one out of a clients tank yesterday, the thing was bigger than a dime, and greenish pink. It went into a little water bottle and on to the next tank where the Toby had a nice meal.
 
I've got TONS of asterina in my tank. Saw a huge one recently. Mostly I have lots and lots of little babies - I think they have black specs. I occasionally see them around the bases of my SPS and sometimes on the outside of my zoas. They don't seem to do any harm though. But they are EVERYWHERE.
 
Hmmmm I've seen those on my zoas previously and the zoas would stop opening up.. They seem to be more assymetrical than the smaller lighter coloured ones on teh glass.. If I see any asterinas on anything but the glass I will remove them.. I think I have some that eat coralline algae as well.. They would leave a thin white trail as they ate the coralline off some of my rocks.. I couldn't figure out where the white specks and lines were coming from...
 
Yes, I have noticed that my coraline algae started having white blotches on the glass and on my live rock and noticed many of these white small starfish, called asterina in my tank. They mowed down a small piece of live rock to a point it turned almost white. How can get rid of them?
Besides picking them out manually....
 
Harlequin shrimp only eat starfish tubefeet. Those come off of a lot more stars than just asterinas. ex: chocolate chip stars, linkia sp I think too.
 
Harlequin shrimp love to eat asterina*. As long as you've got a bunch of them........
*see Mitch's comment below (thanks for clarifying)
 
I added a single harlequin - and a year later I almost never see an asterina anymore. An added benefit is that the harlequin is a really cool shrimp!
 
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