Harlequin vs Asterinas

[N2theUnknown]

So I know what im about to ask has alot of variables so im mainly asking for experiences. I have a 40 breeder with an asterina problem and now im starting to lose gsp and zoas. Ive had these stargiah for like 8 months with no major issues but now things are going down hill fast. After testing parameters and wc regimen for the past month I have the same results. If I had to guess i habe roughly 500 of these stars in my 40 breeder. If I get a single Harlequin shrimp how quickly will it rid the infestation. And once the infestation is gone I dont have anyone local to sell or gove the shrimp to so if I wanted to buy some chocolate stars and rotate cutting legs off for a food source how many stars would I need and how many legs a week would the shrimp need?

 

[KrisReef]

Sounds like the shrimp would have plenty to eat until next year. It might never catch up. What I have observed is that the starfish migrate up the sides of the tank to try and escape the shrimp. There populations get in check but the shrimp can't get them all (because they are hiding) but it is able to live because it will catch enough to hang on.

The discussion about a leg and a thigh and a breast of a chocolate chip starfish is to barbaric of a question to answer. Buy the shrimp and let it eat. If he eats them all you can easily find someone on here or local who will be happy to borrow the shrimp. Mine has been gone for about 6 months touring a friends tank and then back to the lfs. I am going to bring it back it we can find it.

 

[N2theUnknown]

Sounds like the shrimp would have plenty to eat until next year. It might never catch up. What I have observed is that the starfish migrate up the sides of the tank to try and escape the shrimp. There populations get in check but the shrimp can't get them all (because they are hiding) but it is able to live because it will catch enough to hang on.

The discussion about a leg and a thigh and a breast of a chocolate chip starfish is to barbaric of a question to answer. Buy the shrimp and let it eat. If he eats them all you can easily find someone on here or local who will be happy to borrow the shrimp. Mine has been gone for about 6 months touring a friends tank and then back to the lfs. I am going to bring it back it we can find it.

If you had to guess how many stars a day they would eat and again I know there's not a calculation for this but how big was your tank and your star problem and how long was the shrimp in your tank?

 

[KrisReef]

If you had to guess how many stars a day they would eat and again I know there's not a calculation for this but how big was your tank and your star problem and how long was the shrimp in your tank?

105 gallon reef flat. The stars were more than I could count. The shrimp lived in the tank with them for many months and the were slowly going away, almost gone about 3 months ago I caught the shrimp out during the day (before it was only out at night) and a friend wanted to use it for asterinas so I passed it to him. I'm seeing more stars now that the shrimp is gone> I would guess the shrimp was eating between 10-30 stars/day for many, many months. They are voracious. I think it was farming the stars, eating only half of each and allowing them to recover and then get eatten on again? i think it could last many years in my tank this way?

 

[DopamineKata]

105 gallon reef flat. The stars were more than I could count. The shrimp lived in the tank with them for many months and the were slowly going away, almost gone about 3 months ago I caught the shrimp out during the day (before it was only out at night) and a friend wanted to use it for asterinas so I passed it to him. I'm seeing more stars now that the shrimp is gone> I would guess the shrimp was eating between 10-30 stars/day for many, many months. They are voracious. I think it was farming the stars, eating only half of each and allowing them to recover and then get eatten on again? i think it could last many years in my tank this way?

Thanks for this. I was trying to figure out how many stars I'd need to keep one of these guys alive.

 

[cperry7467]

My harlequin doesn't eat the full starfish just the legs. It didn't really reduce my population, I just have a bunch of legless asterina everywhere. I broke down and started spending 10 minutes every night before bed pulling out every one i saw.

 

[nashvillian]

You can put a harlequin shrimp in a breeder box and all the asterina will craw to the top of the glass, where you can remove them. I put this shrimp in about 4 days ago.