asterinas eating zoas

[VirginiaReefer]

I know there is no easy fix to this. i have a 29 gallon saltwater tank thats a mixed reef. 1 tomato clown, 1 springeri damsel, 1 royal gramma. i caught some asterinas eating my zoas after lots of them went missing over a long period of time. I checked the parameters of the water, everything else in the tank is happy, removed as many of the zoa eating starfish as i could when they were in the act. Any suggestions on a remedy of sorts so i can have zoas without the fear of them all being eaten? thanks for any help or suggestions. long time lurker here.

I know there are a few options such as:
1. get all new substrate, rockwork that is dry , frag corals as needed and dip before adding to new tank. (fun on some levels but not preferred of course).
2. try my luck with a harlequin shrimp.
3. just accept it and move on and do nothing.

 

[exnisstech]

Mine tend to gather on the glass after lights out so I scrape them off with a net in the morning. They seem to come in waves. None one day then a bunch then they thin out. I did a dry rock barebottom start up a little over a year ago and they ended up in that tank. They just appear in every tank I have ever had. A harlequin shrimp will eat them but star fish is the only thing they eat and will starve when they are gone.

 

[slogan315]

I had one patch of zoas being eaten by Asterinas. I pulled the zoa rock right when the lights came on and manually removed a bunch of stars. Now I still a few every morning, but the colony is growing faster than their being eaten again since culling the numbers. I’d say regular manual removal keeps the number of zoa eating asterinas low enough to not cause a large impact. Definitely not worth changing rocks IMO.

 

[blecki]

IME they only seem to go after zoas that are already doing poorly.

Are the zoas doing poorly because they are being attacked? Are they being attacked because they are doing poorly? Don't know. But what I can't explain is why I can have two frags right next to each other, and these guys will attack one and not the other. They could even be frags off the same mother colony. I have a lot of zoas and a lot of these guys and most of them aren't being devoured.

I did try and get rid of them at one point but short of bleaching everything and starting fresh I don't know how I would even do that.

 

[Borat]

You want to keep an optimal number of asterina eating stars and zoas. Zoas tend to overpopulate the tank if left uncontrolled. So cull some stars - so that zoas grow a bit faster than they are eaten.

 

[elysics]

You want to keep an optimal number of asterina eating stars and zoas. Zoas tend to overpopulate the tank if left uncontrolled. So cull some stars - so that zoas grow a bit faster than they are eaten.

If only they didn't always eat the most expensive slowest growing ones first and just focused on the explosively growing ones, life could be a dream haha

As for gettin rid of them, plain manual removal. Every day, commit 15 minutes to pull out as many as you can, until you only get single digits anymore a few days in a row. Then continue to pull out any whenever you see them. Might take a month or so. In the finishing stretch you really do need a kill on sight mentality though, can't ever see one and think "oh I'll pull it out later", that won't work

They make nice decoration sprinkles