Hitchhiker in my quarantined chaeto

[saltwatercube]

The chaeto I bought from my LFS for the refugium I was planning on putting in my middle chamber was a mess. I have a 24 gallon AIO nano cube that is a month old and has two clownfish. I saw somewhere to quarantine chaeto for 14 days, so I set up my QT tank with water from my main tank that had nitrates. I made sure to only touch the chaeto with gloves, but it had quite a few hitchhikers of asterina starfish and snails. I have seen so much conflict on whether the asterinas are good or bad, but ultimately I think they won't be in my tank, but I have no clue what the snails are. My tank is so new that it barely has any algae at all and so small that I'm worried the population of asterina will mess with things, but I don't know what to do with them.

I planned on doing the recommended coral dip then freshwater dip to get rid of the possible aiptasia after a few days, but I'm seeing so much conflict on if any of this is even necessary at all.

Any advice for the chaeto or any of the hitchhikers?

 

[Lavey29]

I've got asterina all over my tank with no issues. Their population self regulates based on available algae food so I just see them as part of the biodiversity and microfauna for my overall biome.

 

[Not_Erick]

I believe those are good hitchhikers, part of cuc

 

[Cthulukelele]

Asterinas are a polarizing hitchhiker since in optimal conditions they can explode, but I personally miss having them in my tank. They're one of the first things non-reefers will excitedly point at in your tank. STARFISH!

 

[vetteguy53081]

These and pods are most frequently found in chaeto. Asterina I do not trust. They multiply like mice and will go after softies especially zoa. I had two take down entire colony of bam Bam zoas and reached over the size of a nickel

 

[saltwatercube]

I've got asterina all over my tank with no issues. Their population self regulates based on available algae food so I just see them as part of the biodiversity and microfauna for my overall biome.

How big is your tank? I'm worried mine is too small to support them, not enough algae, and no CUC to clean them up if they die. My tank is only a month old and 24 gallons, so I am just super nervous.

 

[saltwatercube]

These and pods are most frequently found in chaeto. Asterina I do not trust. They multiply like mice and will go after softies especially zoa. I had two take down entire colony of bam Bam zoas and reached over the size of a nickel

Oh WOW! I definitely do not want that. I am leaning towards letting them live in my QT tank, I feel bad plucking them out, but I definitely don't want them in my display tank.

 

[saltwatercube]

I believe those are good hitchhikers, part of cuc

The snails? Or asterina?

 

[Cthulukelele]

The snails? Or asterina?

This is what I meant when I said they're polarizing. There are a few different small starfish species in the hobby. Most of them are harmless and help with cleaning. They're all referred to as asterinas. You don't need to worry about feeding them they won't starve. They are prolific. Something in your tank might eat them faster than they can multiply though.

 

[Lavey29]

How big is your tank? I'm worried mine is too small to support them, not enough algae, and no CUC to clean them up if they die. My tank is only a month old and 24 gallons, so I am just super nervous.

If you don't like them you can always get a harlequin shrimp whose only source of food is asterina starfish. I have an 80g heavily stocked mixed reef and little asterina s dancing around everywhere but they don't touch my corals. I just see them as an integral part of the overall biome.

 

[exnisstech]

Asterina find there way into my tanks no matter what. Last tank I started 10 months ago using dry rock has them starting to appear. In my tanks I take it as a sign of the tank maturing. I have them in all of my tanks and they seem to self regulate the population maybe based on food source but I'm not sure. I love the critters in my chaeto. It's full of pods, bristle worms, and micro brittle stars. All are welcome here.

 

[formallydehyde]

I had an "asterina" starfish (or two?) that came in from some chaeto to my 20 gallon tank about a year ago and it's basically done nothing noticeable. I forget about it, then I have to move a big rock or something and it reappears briefly (probably because I disturbed it). I think it just hangs out in the rock tunnels with the bristleworms.

Since you also have a small tank I wouldn't worry about it. It's not like you're going to have to scour through 200 pounds of live rock to get rid of them if they start being an annoyance.

 

[Tired]

If you don't like them you can always get a harlequin shrimp whose only source of food is asterina starfish. I have an 80g heavily stocked mixed reef and little asterina s dancing around everywhere but they don't touch my corals. I just see them as an integral part of the overall biome.

This will almost inevitably result in the shrimp starving. It would have to be rehomed or supplement-fed with live starfish before it ran out of food, which would mean leaving a few asterinas, which would mean they'd multiply again.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

For clarification here:

-Harlequin Shrimp eat a wide variety of starfish (Asteroids; not brittle starfish which are Ophiuroids).

-You will not be able to grow out enough Aquilonastra ("Asterina") starfish to feed Harlequin sustainably:

you would need to consistently produce an unreasonably large number of stars to feed the harlequin broodstock and offspring long-term - these guys clean out even 300 gallon reef tank Aquilonastra infestations in weeks, not years.

So, to put it another way, short of basically beginning a commercial Aquilonastra farm with several hundreds of gallons of highly functional culture tank space and constant optimization of Aquilonastra culturing methods, you won’t be able to produce enough stars to feed even just the two shrimp in the broodstock pair of your farm as each shrimp will probably eat ~10-30 (accounting for different species and their sizes) Aquilonastra stars a day when full grown (see the quote below). So, assuming you need ~20 a day per full-grown adult shrimp, you’d need to be able to produce ~14,600 stars a year just to feed two adult shrimp.

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

TLDR; It’s theoretically possible to farm harlequin shrimp using Aquilonastra stars as feeders, but it would require culturing an obscenely large number of stars to maintain a very small number of harlequins, so I would recommend against it.

 

[Lavey29]

This will almost inevitably result in the shrimp starving. It would have to be rehomed or supplement-fed with live starfish before it ran out of food, which would mean leaving a few asterinas, which would mean they'd multiply again.

Agreed, the shrimp would need to rehomed after the job was completed. Yes, asterina would most likely return at some point in the future also. This is why I just let nature run its course in my tank.