How to get rid of Asterina Starfish

iloveswfish · Mar 22, 2015

I have been seeing alot of the white Asteria small starfish in my tank... how do you get rid of them, i have been picking them off the rocks and glass... is there any fish that will eat them.

MikeyB · Mar 22, 2015

There's no fish, but there is a shrimp that will.. Harlequin Shrimp

Harlequin Shrimp

Singlefin · Mar 22, 2015

I got a pair of harlequin shrimps. After a couple weeks, they are almost all gone. They were all over my glass. I've seen them jump on stars on my glass.

Singlefin · Mar 22, 2015

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iloveswfish · Mar 22, 2015

i tried a shrimp before but the wrass killed it 2 minutes in the tank...

MikeyB · Mar 22, 2015

iloveswfish said:
i tried a shrimp before but the wrass killed it 2 minutes in the tank...

Hrm i think your only other option would be to keep pulling them out by hand, but it might be hard to get rid of them all. Unless you get rid of that wrasse

Aqua fire/medic · Mar 22, 2015

Put the wrasse in the sump and get a pair of Harley's then when they are done remove them and put them in the sump and the wrasse in your DT. I'm sure if you have asterina in your DT then you will have some in your sump.

eliramos · Mar 22, 2015

You will have to supplement those shrimp with starfish weekly if you plan on keeping them long term they will exhaust those asterinas quickly!

Pete polyp · Mar 22, 2015

Bumblebee shrimp will eat them as they are a different type of harlequin shrimp. The advantage is that they don't have an exclusive diet to starfish. You don't have to feed them starfish after they rid your tank.

iloveswfish · Mar 22, 2015

i have been picking them out every couple of days i like my wrasse's so i was just hoping there was something else i could try and get rid of them

Daniel@R2R · Mar 22, 2015

I've heard that blue linckia stars eat them as well, but I've never tried that.

Randy Holmes-Farley · Mar 23, 2015

Personally, I like them and I have quite a few.

fungia_fiend · Mar 23, 2015

Randy Holmes-Farley said:
Personally, I like them and I have quite a few.

Me too. I love them.

Cleverbs · Mar 23, 2015

I have a pair of harlequins I got for my 220g because of this issue. I had 1000s and I mean 1000s I still have 100s and they have been in the tank for 2 months. I think I just have enough that they spawn as quickly as the shrimp eat. And that is fine by me I just wanted to keep the numbers in check and if they dont go away completely I dont need to buy starfish for my shrimp and that just means more money for coral. I have noticed that the ones still alive on my glass are very large ones. They are all about the size of a nickle. Theres a fair amount of smaller ones but the big ones seem to have increased in numbers.

Rob Top1 · Mar 23, 2015

I never cared about them until I started having problems with some Zoas and finding g the snails on closed polyps. Not saying it was eatti g them for sure and I know some say they do others they don't. At minimum they caused the polyps to close. So a pair of harlies and they are gone

Cleverbs · Mar 23, 2015

They also eat coraline aglae...this is why I got my Harlequins.

acroaddict · Mar 23, 2015

Harlequins are the only real thing that I have found that takes care of them. If you use a smaller hose like 1/2" you can syphon them out pretty easily too without using too much water.

4FordFamily · Mar 23, 2015

I've had them for years and they only start taking over when something gets out of whack - phosphates, nitrates, etc. When these things are in check populations deplate. I do remove them when I put nori sheets in daily (the few easy to grab anyway).

They don't really hurt anything in my experience but I have heard otherwise

JimWelsh · Mar 25, 2015

I had an asterina plague in my 210 gallon tank. Got a pair of Harlequin Shrimp from Diver's Den, and they went to town. After several months, one of them disappeared, but the other is still around after about 1 1/2 years. The asterina population in my tank is literally 1/100th what it used to be. Just enough to keep the remaining Harlequin Shrimp alive.

GreatWhiteTang · Mar 25, 2015

3fordfamily said:
I've had them for years and they only start taking over when something gets out of whack - phosphates, nitrates, etc. When these things are in check populations deplate. I do remove them when I put nori sheets in daily (the few easy to grab anyway).

They don't really hurt anything in my experience but I have heard otherwise

100% agree I've seen them on my zoas 1 time.. And it was after they didn't open for a few days.. Checked and they were being eaten by devil nudis and the stars were just eating the dead ones.. Never seen mine ever munch on healthy corals and with good water quality never reach a "pest" population level