harlequin shrimp/astrea stars

[melonheadorion]

i have a fair amount of astrea stars that i want to get rid of, so that i dont have to continue worrying about them eating my zoas. a harlequin shrimp is obviously a good tool for this, but i dont really want to get one, just to have to either get rid of it when i dont need it anymore, because there is n food left, and i dont want to have to buy starfish just to keep it alive. my question comes down to how much will it eat? is it going to erradicate a large amount of starfish in a small amount of time, or if i hhave a medium size population of them, will the astrea keep up the population enough for it to be a food source that stays adequate?

for example, right now i see about 12 astrea just on the glass alone, on a 65g. that doesnt count others within the tanks, so we can easily assume that there are 30 or more within the tank. how fast would a harley go through a population like that?

 

[blaxsun]

Chocolate starfish are cheap. You can always re-home the shrimp after...

 

[nkyreef]

I would talk to your LFS. I was able to get one to take care of my asterina starfish. When I saw they were completely gone I was able to take it back and get partial store credit. I called it rent-a-shrimp haha.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

i have a fair amount of astrea stars that i want to get rid of, so that i dont have to continue worrying about them eating my zoas. a harlequin shrimp is obviously a good tool for this, but i dont really want to get one, just to have to either get rid of it when i dont need it anymore, because there is n food left, and i dont want to have to buy starfish just to keep it alive. my question comes down to how much will it eat? is it going to erradicate a large amount of starfish in a small amount of time, or if i hhave a medium size population of them, will the astrea keep up the population enough for it to be a food source that stays adequate?

for example, right now i see about 12 astrea just on the glass alone, on a 65g. that doesnt count others within the tanks, so we can easily assume that there are 30 or more within the tank. how fast would a harley go through a population like that?

30 asterinas will last a week or 2 - tops -with an average sized harlequin. My recommendation, just remove them from the glass when you see them.

 

[fishguy242]

about 15 a day,controlled feeding, she's only sm-med rt now

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

about 15 a day,controlled feeding, she's only sm-med rt now

Thanks. I couldn't remember how many mine was eating before I started feeding chocolate chips... It was huge and I had to buy a chocolate chip every week to 10 days! Finally re-homed it.