Zoa Apocalypse

[ilfrit]

Hi All,

This past month I saw my Zoa garden that I setup about 4 months ago slowly disappear and is now gone.

My diagnosis is not water parameters but rather something eating them. I have had these little blue starfish pop up that I think are Asterina, but a quick google image search doesn't ever seem to show them this blue color. There is a lot of them now, I think I spotted the first one about 4 months ago when the first Zoa went into the tank and being only about a year into the hobby thought, "Awww cute".

Can someone ID them for me please.

 

[BlueNem]

Hi

If those star are reproducing a lot I would say they are asterinas and get them out of the tank immediately.


Regards,

 

[Tahoe61]

The Asterina likely ate your Zoanthids. Some Asterina become opportunistic eaters.

 

[VintageReefer]

That’s white asterina under blue lighting making it appear blue

 

[VintageReefer]

https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/exosphere’s-vanishing-losing-colony-need-help.1042362/

 

[Tahoe61]

That’s white asterina under blue lighting making it appear blue

There a blue ones. The blue colored ones seem to prefer Zoanthid. The pink colored ones are Sps eaters.

 

[twentyleagues]

I dont think color matters in the least. I found red, grey, white , green on zoas eating them in the past. Harlequin shrimp took care of all of them they also dont care what color they are.

 

[Tahoe61]

This is an excellent thread.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/how-to-get-rid-of-asterina-starfish.661653/

 

[ilfrit]

Thanks all, my LFS doesn't have any harlequin shrimp at the moment, but I've got some long tweezers I can begin removing the ones I see for now.

 

[exnisstech]

I've had them for years and they were never a problem but recently I've caught them eating flesh off one of my acros so I added a harlequin shrimp. You probably have more than you realize, I sure do. Your plan to manually remove them is good. Harlequin will starve when the stars are gone. I have multiple tanks all with asterinas.

 

[Palmetto Reefer]

I had well over a hundred of them in my tank a couple months ago. I purchased several popular zoa/paly frags and put them in the tank back in October. I came home one day from work and noticed one of the the asterinas literally sucking the life out of a pink krackatoa zoa, another one on an utter chaos paly, and yet another one on an illuminati zoa. I grabbed my coral tweezers, rolled up my sleeves and dove in. For the next two weeks, every night I spent 15-20 minutes with a flashlight and those coral tweezers hunting and plucking out those little monsters. That pretty much eliminate 95% of them. I realize that there are others that I can't see on the back side of my aquascape, but every night when I clean, feed, and do a general check of the tank I would do a quick search for those little jerks, especially checking each zoa colony. Since that initial two-week search and destroy phase, I have only removed a handful of asterinas, but I did catch two more this past Sunday. I realize that trying to rid them by hand is probably never going to completely eliminate them, so I just take the approach that I'll remove them immediately if I see any. Just part of my maintenance routine now I quess.

A harlequin shrimp is a great option, but only if you don't already have other decorative starfish in the tank. I couldn't use them because I have a couple starfish in my reef tank. If you don't have any other starfish, this option can potentially get rid of them completely; however, once they are gone so will the harlequin unless you buy/feed it other starfish.

 

[VintageReefer]

There a blue ones. The blue colored ones seem to prefer Zoanthid. The pink colored ones are Sps eaters.

White ones with red speckled backs eat zoa as well

 

[twentyleagues]

White ones with red speckled backs eat zoa as well

I honestly think they all will. I know someone was trying sort of to set up a data base on them with color coding for which will and will not eat corals. I honestly think thats a waste of time as I have seen most of the colors put holes in zoas. Just say no to asterinas.