Harlequin shrimp?

[turbois300]

Ok. well after pulling over 50 little starfish out of my tank the past 2 days and pulling a dozen more off my blue zoas this morning in a suit before work!!!!!! I am really ticked off at these guys!! When I first noticed them months ago they seemed cool and didn't seem to bother anything. No zoas closed or any troubles.

Well after really looking closely at my tank the past few weeks I noticed that one of my zoa colonies started to look smaller and smaller. So I actually countes all 65 polyps on this 1 particular colony. They aren't super expensive one but they have a really pretty silver star center and brownish blue skirt. Well after the colony was ***** repeatedly down to 32 heads with half of those starting to stay closed more often, I did a stake out with my new baby daughter!!!

She actually pointed them out to me (by crying and screaming).... ok not really but I'm trying to get her into the hobby really early.

Anyways there they were all wrapped around and ontop of the colony, all 14 of them. I'd take pix but our camera isn't tank friendly and I can't focus in past the glass to good. At anyrate I got her to sleep and then began the harvest....well I must have some sort of optimum conditions for those buggers, cause after I pulled the 14 off I pulled another 32 of hem off the glass and other rocks.

Thinking I got them over the next 2 weeks I've probably pulled close to 150 of them out of my tank. Now mind you I have a 29 galon tank. You would think that those kind of numbers would show signs of predation all over the tank and the tank be just teeming with them in plain sight but you cant see them and then they are all there again.

SO...... after a way too long narative here is my question - they are still in there in pretty good force (20 visible at almost all times) Is it time to call in a natural predator (Harlequin)?? I have a cleaner and pepermint shrimp (not that they eat starfish but would the harlequin eat them?) My wife thinks they are really pretty and i imagine that it would have quite a bit of food in there. But would that be advisable? I am getting a larger tank in a few months and I'd like to nip this problem before it gets any worse.

Please advise!!!!!!!!! :horse:

 

[Sea MunnKey]

You're not alone ..... these 'culprits' almost eat away a nice frag that I'd acquired sometime ago ...... now they're in the refugium and I'm thinking of getting a pair of Harlequin shrimps to eradicate them buggers ....:mad: !!

I share your :( ... dude!!

Paul

 

[turbois300]

Yeah I didn't even think of that. I'll bet there are a ton in my fuge too...... #@%#@^&@#!%&@#$&!^!@$#&!! After the shrimp is done in the display could I move it to the fuge??? Will they kill my other shrimp or crabs/snails??

 

[turbois300]

Would yo recomend getting it from liveaquaria? or is there another place that has them or has better results getting them to you? I don't thikn that my LFS carries them that often.

 

[J. Montgomery]

I've got probably several thousand Astrea (sp?) stars in my tank and over 30 different zoa morphs, and they've never harmed any zoas. I frequently see them on the zoas, though I've assumed they're cleaning the polyps.

Double check to make sure you don't have any zoa eating nudis (they've recently appeared in my tank, and I'm suspicious that they may have come from the SW VA area). They can be really tricky to see, and they'll adopt the color of the zoas they've been eating (so they blend in between all the skirts). Blow the zoas with a turkey baster to cause them to close up and the nudis will be easier to see.

 

[turbois300]

do those nudis have what look like spines or sonic hedgehog like fleshy points around them?? probably a bad description. I pulled something like that off a large paly the other night to. the tips of the sonic pointy things seemed to glow a redish color under actinic only lighting? What is the best way to get rid of those buggers?? Man I hope my tank isn't infested with those things too or I'll be nukin' the rock and starting over in the new tank...which would suck because the tank in general seems to be doing really good

 

[J. Montgomery]

http://www.zoaid.com/index.php?module=Gallery2&g2_itemId=415

If you do have nudis, I don't think theres any need to start a new tank. Identifying the problem is the first step in fixing things.

 

[turbois300]

Thanks for the link J.

I won't be starting the tank until the end of January.. if it turns out that I have a problem with this tank the I'll just keep it running and start from scratch in the new tank. I'm definately giong to go the macro rocks route also and dip all corals. The new tank will be mostly a fish only tank with some LPS and softies. The family wants some nice tangs and a few others so....

 

[turbois300]

OH %^&*@#!! I found a coil of those eggs on my 1 RPE paly just this morning......how do you get rid of those???? I have a bad feeling that my war is about to get very bloody and messy. Is there a dip I can do?? Can I do a FW dip??? Is there something I can do when I move the tank to help? This is not good at all!

 

[surfn]

yeah, apparently josh got some nudi's from some zoas he got at Ultimate......which is surprising b/c chris dips all corals coming into his system. but the dip doesn't kill eggs....so i imagine they hatched after being put into the system.

as for the asterina stars......i doubt they are harming the zoas.

as for harliquen shrimp......i've had 2 in the past, they'll whipe out the astreas in the tank in less than a month. and then you have to feed them with large linkia star fish...on the order of 1 every 3 weeks or so. both ended up dying b/c i couldn't give them enough star fish to eat since thats teh ONLY thing they'll eat. you also will never see them, they only come out at night for the most part.

 

[J. Montgomery]

In addition to the UA zoas, I also picked up a colony at the grand opening of Atlantis that are suspects. I've been picking out one or two adults per day for the past few days (I only recently saw them, but I'm getting really good at spotting them).

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it. 6-line wrasses are supposed to eat them, but I've heard they're a ******* of a fish . . . I don't really want to upset my community. Many of my zoas are firmly attached to rock, so pulling all of them out isn't really feasible.

 

[Hypertek99]

Oh no Turbo Nudis on the RPE!!! That's not good. I hope i never find nudis in my tank. I don't think you can kill the eggs will probably have to rub them off.

 

[surfn]

In addition to the UA zoas, I also picked up a colony at the grand opening of Atlantis that are suspects. I've been picking out one or two adults per day for the past few days (I only recently saw them, but I'm getting really good at spotting them).

I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it. 6-line wrasses are supposed to eat them, but I've heard they're a ******* of a fish . . . I don't really want to upset my community. Many of my zoas are firmly attached to rock, so pulling all of them out isn't really feasible.

thats actually not that surprising for Atlantis...as they don't inspect any of their colonies for predators. I've gotten zoa nudi's from them before, and I know they have red bugs and AEFW as well as monti nudi's in their show tanks (at the old store at least).

 

[turbois300]

Yeah I noticed the eggs this morning when I was pulling out starfish.... I'm starting to get a bit freaked out now after reading some threads on those guys. A wrass would not upset my balance as I have 2 b&W clowns that attack me when I get in the tank and a sissy pajama cardinal that just hides anyway.... so that may be an option.

Yeah I got a new colony of zoas about 4 weeks ago from UA but they look good.... I don't dip but I'll start now... for sure.

surfn - the start are litterally ontop and wrapped around the zoas when I find them (as well as on the glass) are you sure that they arent eating them?? Maybe i just catch them on the polyps and the nudi's are actually the culprits?? I was hoing it wasn't the stars but there just seem to be so many that they have to be eatting something???? Maybe not the zoas/palys though???? Thanks for the help all.

 

[surfn]

OH %^&*@#!! I found a coil of those eggs on my 1 RPE paly just this morning......how do you get rid of those???? I have a bad feeling that my war is about to get very bloody and messy. Is there a dip I can do?? Can I do a FW dip??? Is there something I can do when I move the tank to help? This is not good at all!

lugols dip in freshwater is what i usually use to get rid of the zoas. but you gota bring the temp up to match the aquarium temp.

i think its like 3 drops per gallon of water. and only leave them in for 5min if doing a freshwater dip, if you do it any longer it could kill them.

as for the eggs, you gota scrap them off.

 

[turbois300]

Can I do a fresh water dip or should I buy a chemical dip??? Now that the corals are in the tank and have been there for a long time would a dip even help???

 

[turbois300]

Sorry double post....... kinda

 

[J. Montgomery]

No need to freak out, man. Like I said, once you know what it is you can formulate a plan of attack against the problem.

I seriuosly doubt its the stars, but . . . some people swear that they've had problems with them. The problem with stars is there's no telling how many different species are out there that all look alike to us. And if only one of them eats zoas, then they all get a bad rap.

 

[turbois300]

As far as scraping off the eggs shoud I take the coral out and scrape them into another container then put them back??? this is really bad news folks!!! I wa getting so proud of my setup! $&#*%*%$*!@#

 

[turbois300]

I hear ya J. Well I guess then the first step would be to try a nudi eating fish (wrass) ?? I'm trying to be calm about this. I am thinking by all of your responces that tackeling the nudi problem is the first line of business? Should I still remove the start though as I see them?