Zoanthid eating Asterina Starfish

[hackman72]

Brisco15;477066 wrote: Yeah i had one way back had to buy it chocolate chip stars to eat.So i guess it makes sense they would eat these if there was nothing left. I havent had any problems that i know of yet with them but this horror story will have me buying a harlequin this week.

lol...well hopefully this will be as bad as it gets. The larger colonies have obvious damage but most of the zoa's are only frags at this point and remain untouched. The colonies should recover just fine.

JDabs;477068 wrote: Hopefully the harlequin will do it's job. Mine has really done a great job keeping them under control in my tank. They are not gone by any means but that's good cause he always has something to eat.

Yeah, I'm not counting on 100% gone but just as a control measure. Plus, that is probably the coolest looking shrimp there is...lol.

 

[smoothie]

How many have you picked out so far?

 

[hackman72]

Smoothie;477081 wrote: How many have you picked out so far?

maybe 15 or so (in about an 20 min. time). I'm just getting that ones I see and are easy to get to and not worrying about which is good or bad. Best time is when the lights are out as they're all over the glass. They run-n-hide when the lights are on.

 

[drnecropolis]

Those are 100% identical to the ones I have.. I used to remove about 60 every other night when they were eating my GSP..

 

[ricksconnected]

i see one from time to time n my tank as well.
i dont have a ton of zoas but i have a few. should i be pickin and a killin too hackman?

 

[hackman72]

DrNecropolis;477085 wrote: Those are 100% identical to the ones I have.. I used to remove about 60 every other night when they were eating my GSP..

I didn't know they'd eat gsp also. It's always sumpin...lol.

ricksconnected;477086 wrote: i see one from time to time n my tank as well.
i dont have a ton of zoas but i have a few. should i be pickin and a killin too hackman?

I never had before but nver had any problems before. You can but I doubt you'd ever really geta handle on them. There are tons more that you don't see in and around the rock. Mainly see if you have any like the ones in the pic I posted.

 

[hackman72]

justindville1987;477048 wrote: i have a ton of those in my tank and just started having a problem with my zoas. i think i will have my hands full tanking them all out of my tank. thanks for the info.

Try a Harlequin shrimp if you can. Makes life a whole lot easier.

 

[ricksconnected]

yep i have them as in your pics. mine are white.

 

[smoothie]

Mine are white/tan. I enjoy watching my blue linkia eat them

 

[ricksconnected]

i cant keep stars or shrimp. they all dye within a week for some odd reason.

 

[hackman72]

ricksconnected;477095 wrote: yep i have them as in your pics. mine are white.

Smoothie;477097 wrote: Mine are white/tan. I enjoy watching my blue linkia eat them

The only ones I've had on my colonies are the ones that are white with a blueish/grayish back. The other colored ones stay mostly on the glass or rock eating algae.

 

[drnecropolis]

ricksconnected;477100 wrote: i cant keep stars or shrimp. they all dye within a week for some odd reason.

I had that issue for the longest time.. I started dripping the shrimp for about 3 hours before placing them in the tank and have had great success since then..

 

[smoothie]

DrNecropolis;477103 wrote: I had that issue for the longest time.. I started dripping the shrimp for about 3 hours before placing them in the tank and have had great success since then..

Yep I drip EVERYTHING!

 

[corigan]

Yeah those are the blue buggers that have caused me fits. I will wake up and see rocks like yours. However the polyps do come back and open up a week or two later, sometimes with cooler color patterns. It's kinda frustrating though as it's like, what colony are they going to get tonight. I don't have a huge infestation as I hardly see them anymore, but it is just a pain in the rump. I am thinking about getting a harlequin, but only if I have someone who will take it off my hands after it is done doing it's job as I am not going to continue to feed it starfish.

 

[sra_chipmunk]

I have those stars in my tank and just like you, they started wiping out my zoas, THEN, I found that 3 of my zoa frags have Zoa Pox so I got hit twice by Zoa killers. I bought a Harliquin shrimp about 3 weeks ago and he has done a hell of a number on those stars. I looked around for about 10 minutes yesterday and I couldnt find any stars in my tank and I used to have hundreds of them. Either my purple tang spread the word to my stars that a harliquin shrimp was in the area and they all hid in the rocks or the shrimp is actually wiping them out.

 

[brianjfinn]

Same thing happened to me, hackman! I've had my tank set up for something like six years, then one night about a month or so ago, I noticed one of my zoa frag plugs was completely bare. I've seen the stars in the tank for the longest time, but they didn't start eating the zoas until recently. The funny thing is, it seemed like they'd only go for certain ones. Luckily my nice zoas were left untouched.

Needless to say, I love my new harley.

 

[nanonano]

Thanks for posting this. I have one in my tank, but usually he just chills on the glass. I'll keep a close eye on him.

 

[nanonano]

DrNecropolis;477103 wrote: I had that issue for the longest time.. I started dripping the shrimp for about 3 hours before placing them in the tank and have had great success since then..

3 hours? For salinity acclimation?

 

[honeyb627]

Hackman72;477073 wrote: There are 3 or 4 different types in my tank. I ran into Dave (Acroholic) today and he'd said that the ones he'd heard from others that eat zoa's had a blue color to them...same as these do. I wanted to try and get a few pics posted (despite my lack of camera skeelz) for others to get a good look at them. Some of them have a gray back and most of them are white. They tend to stayin the rocks and on the glass. Only these little blue back ones have started to venture onto the fragrack and this has just started happening.

Well crap, I found 3 that were predominately blue when we got home last night... is there a way to eradicate these guys without a harlequin shrimp, so we can stop something before it starts?

I'd really love to get a Red Fromia Star at some point, so a Harlequin is out I think. And I'd hate to buy the guy to eat a couple handfuls of stars and then let him starve to death.

 

[ricksconnected]

hey honeyB

get hackmans when hes done with it.
in the meantime find somebody that will take him off your hands when your done with him too.
pass him around to do some work then he can be traded back into the store for credits.