Coralline Algae vs. Urchins & Asterina

[Patio]

Curios what y'all think.

While I do not seem to have visible typical coralline algae anywhere in my tank, I do have urchins and many many asterina starfish. I used to think- look at me not having to feed alk & cal to coralline algae (pats self on back), its all going to coral instead. But then I realize the starfish and urchins themselves might be using some alk & cal which makes me wonder if they use more or less than if I had coralline growing in the tank rather than them.

Who consumes more cal/alk, coralline vs urchins & asterina? I imagine this is very hard to answer or know for sure but curious what you think.

 

[JVU]

Asterina stars eat coralline algae aggressively. That’s the main reason to control their numbers in my opinion. So Alk/Ca -> coralline -> asterina

 

[MichaelB]

I have corline alage it vanished when asterinas multipled, hasn't started growing again until i had a harlequin shrimp that ate them all. Went two years without any coraline in the tank. They also ate some prized zoas before i got rid of them.

Recommend harlequin shrimp if you have nothing that would prey upon it. Just be prepared to rehome it once job is completed. They only eat starfish nothing else. Extremely effective i might add, i had a few 100 asterinas took 3 months to wipe them out.

 

[Patio]

I like the asterinas I have and am also enjoying not having to deal with coralline algae.

Harlequin are very cool. My long time reefing buddy Pete always kept them so I would get my fix visiting his tank (same with his anemones).

What are some drawbacks to not having coralline? I hear people often say it out competes algae but I currently have a clean up crew that can handle the algae in my tank. Are there other pros to coralline algae?

 

[JVU]

Just effort-free algae suppression. That’s a biggie in my opinion. Sounds like you’ve already got that covered though.

There’s evidence that coral planulae (babies) like to preferentially land and develop on coralline. But that isn’t relevant in our tanks.

 

[MichaelB]

I like the asterinas I have and am also enjoying not having to deal with coralline algae.

Harlequin are very cool. My long time reefing buddy Pete always kept them so I would get my fix visiting his tank (same with his anemones).

What are some drawbacks to not having coralline? I hear people often say it out competes algae but I currently have a clean up crew that can handle the algae in my tank. Are there other pros to coralline algae?

I didn't mine a handful of asterinas, hundreds of them are unsightly. Though now I have to scrape my glass to keep coralline from building up again something I never had to do with the asterina invasion.

I removed 20/30 a night, still made no dent so it was pretty bad. Why I disliked them.

 

[gmdcdvm]

I hate having to scrape coraline algae off of things. There was a podcast on reefbum a few months ago. I forgot who he interviewed. He was an online vendor and mentioned he loved asterina. He felt they were the best clean up crew, but could not have them due to selling corals to customers. He did not want to pass them along by accident since most people have a negative view of them. One interesting comment he made with regards to them being pests. He felt there were two types (at least). The dull colored ones he thought were safe around corals. The ones that had some bright colored specks/streaks of orange/yellow/blue in his experience were pests and would eat corals. He felt the ones that were seen to eat corals where either the pest species or the corals were sick/dying off and they were taking advantage. I would be interested to here what others have to say about them.

Gerry

 

[Patio]

Just effort-free algae suppression. That’s a biggie in my opinion.

Agree on the algae suppression biggie. There are many times over the years when my clean up crew can't take care of what algae is in the tank. While things are good now, that can change at any moment...

I removed 20/30 a night, still made no dent so it was pretty bad. Whyni disliked them.

A few times a year I siphon out a bunch during water changes. It seems like more appear the next day

 

[JVU]

The different types is my experience also. I have the dull grey ones and they don’t eat my coral. I used to have too many but now I have a small number that are fine.

 

[Patio]

I hate having to scrape coraline algae off of things. There was a podcast on reefbum a few months ago. I forgot who he interviewed.

Was it Dong Zou?! I think i recall that as well.

 

[tribbitt]

I hate having to scrape coraline algae off of things. There was a podcast on reefbum a few months ago. I forgot who he interviewed. He was an online vendor and mentioned he loved asterina. He felt they were the best clean up crew, but could not have them due to selling corals to customers. He did not want to pass them along by accident since most people have a negative view of them. One interesting comment he made with regards to them being pests. He felt there were two types (at least). The dull colored ones he thought were safe around corals. The ones that had some bright colored specks/streaks of orange/yellow/blue in his experience were pests and would eat corals. He felt the ones that were seen to eat corals where either the pest species or the corals were sick/dying off and they were taking advantage. I would be interested to here what others have to say about them.

Gerry

Tidal Gardens Than has expressed this sentiment in one of his more recent videos as well

 

[Darkxerox]

Was it Dong Zou?! I think i recall that as well.

I think it was. Said the brownish or reddish ones were bad right?

 

[newfly]

I didn’t know Asteria eat coralline. Learn something new today. Makes me want to let them be vs picking them out everyday.