My zoas are disappearing

[Kimberely]

My zoas are slowly disappearing and I've picked over a dozen asterinas off them in the last few days. Any way to eradicate these pests other than a harlequin shrimp? I don't run a sump to keep chocolate chip starfish in and I wouldn't want the harlequin to starve after it eats all these little white beasties.

 

[DharkaronReef]

I have asterina starfishes disturb and overtake my zoa colonies. Only way is to manually remove each one from your tank.

 

[Kimberely]

I have asterina starfishes disturb and overtake my zoa colonies. Only way is to manually remove each one from your tank.

Thanks. I'll keep picking them out then.

 

[ashburn2k]

What fish do you have? Starfish may only eating dying zoas, I have a lot of those starfish but I don’t see my zoas disappearing .

 

[Kimberely]

What fish do you have? Starfish may only eating dying zoas, I have a lot of those starfish but I don’t see my zoas disappearing .

I have a pair of ocellaris clowns, a pair of azure damsels, a royal gramma and a six line wrasse. I pulled many of the asterinas off of the zoa colonies. There are a bunch of different asterina species and some have been known to eat zoas. The problem is they're nearly indistinguishable from the ones that don't.

 

[JEREMY82]

Everynite get a net scrape them off the back of your glass dip your zoas if you have to ... them things well destroy your zoas. I had them in a frag tank,tried all the routes they destroyed hundreds of dollars in zoas .. tore down tank cause of them things

 

[Capitol Reef Corals]

If you can remove the rock or whatever they are on you can dip them in Coral Revive. It'll kill the stars and zoas love Revive.

 

[Kimberely]

If you can remove the rock or whatever they are on you can dip them in Coral Revive. It'll kill the stars and zoas love Revive.

Wouldn't I have to dip everything in the tank though?

 

[Capitol Reef Corals]

Wouldn't I have to dip everything in the tank though?

Seems like they are attracted to the zoas. Might be an effective way to get rid a lot of them at one time instead of having to pick them off one by one. Yes there would still be some in the tank, but you could dip every other day or every three days to quickly decrease their population

 

[danschoenherr]

Get a harlequin shrimp.....it will take care of the problem. When you are done with him, give to a fellow reefer in need or sell at a discount. I've passed on 2 of them already and have one working on my zoa tank as we speak. Beautiful creature as well. From my experience though, the asterinas mainly go to town on the zoas that are already sick/dying.