A_Lee
Guest
I suppose part of being a reefer is knowing you'll be spending half of your time fighting off some pest, or solving some puzzling coral behavior 
Well, I have about 6-7 zoanthid colonies throughout my tank. Over the last three days, portions of three of those colonies have not been opening up. One of those three colonies polyps don't look so hot -the stalks seem to be thinning, and some of the oral discs are belling ever so slightly. I haven't added anything new to my tank in a while now. I've given the three colonies that are acting odd FW dips, and nothing came off, except for 1-2 asterina stars.
This morning when I looked at my tank with the lights out, I did see an asterina star on one of the stalks of my zoanthid polyps (the colony with the thinning stalks). I don't like to blame inverts for something they may not have done, but I am not going to lose my colonies to something like this. I would like to get rid of the asteria stars in my tank; I don't have tons, but they are on the glass, and I would assume they're also on the rocks. How can I go about removing them?
Manual removal seems a little silly because it would be a tremendous amount of work, yielding what I would imagine to be low results.
The other option I guess would be a Harlequin shrimp. Never had one of these guys, but I have heard of a few reefers utilizing these guys to control their asterina stars. How quickly do they eat these mini-stars? If I add one to my tank, will it decimate the entire asterina population, or just munch on them here and there, and over time keep the population in check? Unless the Harlequin shrimp will do the latter, I am not looking to keep the little fella' in the long term, as I don't have time to be lopping off CC star legs every week.
Any thought are appreciated (about the Harlequin, and the zoanthids acting odd).
Well, I have about 6-7 zoanthid colonies throughout my tank. Over the last three days, portions of three of those colonies have not been opening up. One of those three colonies polyps don't look so hot -the stalks seem to be thinning, and some of the oral discs are belling ever so slightly. I haven't added anything new to my tank in a while now. I've given the three colonies that are acting odd FW dips, and nothing came off, except for 1-2 asterina stars.
This morning when I looked at my tank with the lights out, I did see an asterina star on one of the stalks of my zoanthid polyps (the colony with the thinning stalks). I don't like to blame inverts for something they may not have done, but I am not going to lose my colonies to something like this. I would like to get rid of the asteria stars in my tank; I don't have tons, but they are on the glass, and I would assume they're also on the rocks. How can I go about removing them?
Manual removal seems a little silly because it would be a tremendous amount of work, yielding what I would imagine to be low results.
The other option I guess would be a Harlequin shrimp. Never had one of these guys, but I have heard of a few reefers utilizing these guys to control their asterina stars. How quickly do they eat these mini-stars? If I add one to my tank, will it decimate the entire asterina population, or just munch on them here and there, and over time keep the population in check? Unless the Harlequin shrimp will do the latter, I am not looking to keep the little fella' in the long term, as I don't have time to be lopping off CC star legs every week.
Any thought are appreciated (about the Harlequin, and the zoanthids acting odd).
