Cali Kid Corals

Hornet-killing Baby Starfish

Euphyllia

Euphyllia

Guest
BARcard
There are 2-3 little grey-purple starfish around and on my hornets every day. The Purple Hornets haven't been opening to full potential this past week and they seem bothered. I think the issue with them not opening might be something else, or it could be the starfish. My Red Hornet seems fine as of now, and overnight it actually shot out some new tissue that should start a colony soon. I have my hornets about 8" from the lights and 6" from the surface of the water. Can the starfish harm my hornets? Should I remove as many as I can manually?
 
Plumstr8 said:
Do you know what species of Starfish it is? How long have you been seeing them?
Click to expand...

I've been seeing them since I've started saltwater tanks... so three years. They're asterina starfish. I found what type by Google. :bigsmile:
 
Well there is a few different types of asterina starfish, Im not sure how to tell the difference? But some people report them eating some Zoas and SPS. I dont know if you have any other " Prized Starfish or Urchins " but you could add one harlequin shrimp or 2 (*mated pair) they should remove them and any others you dont see.
 
I just removed 30 from the glass and the back of the tank. Whenever I see them on the hornets I always take them off. I wonder why did they choose only my hornets to eat... I guess the expensive ones taste better. :(
I don't want to increase the bio-load of my tank for now so I don't think I'll be getting the shrimp. I'm thinking of getting a pair of small gobies after Christmas since my Bangai Cardinalfish died.
 
Hopefully, if my purple hornets are melting, the Red Hornets will be OK. Could the starfish have caused the Purple Hornets to start melting? And are Blue Hornets are finicky as Purple Hornets?
 
Does it look like its disintegrating to nothing? I bought a nice size colony of african blue hornets and only had 1 head left. It's starting to grow back some more heads now but I should have done my research before buying them. Read on RC that you have to treat it like SPS. High flow and high light. I got this in the middle of my tank in a high flow area. When it was melting it was on the sandbed.
 
My PHs don't look like they're melting, but they're just not opening. They have been fine in that spot for about 6 months or more and it's only this past week when they started not opening fully.
 
When they first start to melt they stay closed for a long time usually
 
You may do a peroxide dip to check if it helps; think is 1/10 ratio?
I've noticed in the past asterina stars on the zoanthids; I can't assure they were the cause of some polyps not opening or plainly melt away but whenever I saw one on a zoa that meant get the little sucker out; still I have little stars and don't mind most of them.
 
GreshamH said:
When they first start to melt they stay closed for a long time usually
Click to expand...

They aren't fully closed, although some polyps are. The others are just not opened fully. I have CoralRx and some iodine dip. Would that help at all with anything?
 
Euphyllia said:
I'm pretty sure some of them are melting now. Would fragging the polyps that haven't gone bad yet or giving them a dip help?
Click to expand...

Ugh, you can try dipping it but the ones that melted are gone. If you still have polyps you have a chance of them growing back. I had about 25 melt on me with 1 polyp left. Now I have a total of 9 polyps from that 1 polyp. Good luck! :)
 
All of the Purple Hornets melted. :'(
My Red Hornets are steadily growing. I just found a small starfish on them so I'm going to move them to my new (starfish-free) tank with MH along with a ricordea when the tank is finished cycling.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top