Vermatids and little gray starfish

[BestMomEver]

Don’t get more than one. One will wipe out your starfish population in a very short time. Then you’ll have to either buy starfish for it or give it back to the LFS

I found one yesterday and brought it home. I have to say that this shrimp is one of the coolest creatures I’ve ever owned. I don’t want it to starve. There is an LFS in town that has a tank with zillions of little stars. I will go collect them up!

Thanks so much everyone! Now on to vermatids!

 

[Thor2j]

That’s so cool! How long does it take for them to eat a cc starfish leg? Also, I have tons of those tiny stars. How will I know when it has eaten them all? I know there’s no way to count all of them so I will have no idea if they’re all gone. I don’t want the shrimp to starve.

You will see your stars scatter like Ted bundy is chasing them. You wont see the harlequin at all. When you see him out and about roaming around it's time to find him more food. They rarely come out unless hungry.

 

[rkpetersen]

Throw in a chocolate chip star leg and I won't see the pair for 4 days to a week.

Throw in as many asterina stars as you can collect, you'll still never see them much at all with 1 or 2 harlequins in da house.

 

[JVU]

I’ve read harlequin shrimp can also eat urchins, anyone have any personal experience that either way? Considering them.

I let the asterina stars get out of control since it didn’t seem like they were causing any problems, then I noticed some zoas disappear. Plus they were eating all the coralline algae. I was wondering if maybe they go after the zoas when they are short on their normal food.

So I decided to thin their numbers by manual removal. I use a siphon hose without the larger tube, far end in my filter sock in my sump, while holding a small pick next to the business end of the tube. I dislodge the stars with the pick then they get sucked down into the filter sock. I’ve found that the small ones are much harder to see than you would think, but are easier to see with one of those floating viewports. I’ve done about 8 sessions of removing as many as I can find once a day or so, approximately 200-300 per session. I’ve definitely made a dent in the population and the coralline is rebounding, but every time I go back I find hundreds more...

 

[Greg Witherell]

This morning I noticed a lot of spider web coming out from under my frogspawn looked closely and found lots of vermatid snails. Pulled it out for manual removal and got them off. The good news was there was a bumble bee snail feeding on them, just too many for the little guy to keep up with. At least I know for sure they do eat them.