Tiny Nuisance Star Fish

[nyc reefer]

I must have bought a frag which had one of these tiny starfish in it and now my glass gets covered with them at night. How can I get rid of them, I pick them off but doesn’t seem to help. There are at least a hundred of these all over the glass. Will adding a harlequin shrimp help?

 

[IKD]

Do you have a picture? If they are asterina, then a harlequin should work (note that there are some reports they didn’t eat asterina stars). If they do help, you may need a plan to re-home them when they run out of food.

 

[nyc reefer]

I’ll take a picture tonight when I get home

 

[NanoDJS]

I will buy the shrimp when hes done eating em all up.

 

[samnaz]

You will have to rehome the shrimp after it eats all the asterinas. Manual removal is another option. I know someone who created a device like a mag cleaner but it’s a scooper for asterinas. Brilliant! I’ll post a link.

 

[nyc reefer]

Awesome thanks send the link if you can.

 

[samnaz]

here it is! super cool gadget. (I recommend anything from this guy in general).

Asterina Magnetic Scooper | Printed3D.Parts

This is an Asterina Magnetic Scooper. It is designed to work like a glass cleaner but for Asterina starfish! Just slide it around and it will scoop all the stars in the container. Then simply let dry, slide the cap open and discard the contents. It has a slide-removable top and a chamfered edge to

printed3d.parts

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

Bumblebee shrimp will eat them in addition to taking other foods so you won't have to rehome them.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Larger wrasses will gobble them up like it's candy, so will many triggers. I do not have any of the asterina starfish. I bought my harlequin tusk from a private seller a few years ago, after a couple of weeks I get a message from the seller telling me that he had no idea he had asterina starfish until he sold the tusk. The tusk was doing such a good job eating them the previous owner didn't even know there were any in his tank. Now the tusk is in my tank and they are all over his rock and glass.

 

[TankYou]

Find a star fish that eats asterinas.

 

[Halal Hotdog]

Find a star fish that eats asterinas.

Fantastic action shot.

 

[HB AL]

There #s will eventually go down. I just let them run the course and they ate almost all of my coraline algae. Then I noticed I wasn’t seeing as many as before on the glass so they had stopped reproducing, and now I see some small ones only not many and my coraline is growing back, this all happened over the course of roughly 6 months. They didn’t really bug me as they were not eating any of the corals, but as others have stated you can manually remove them and add in some predators to help eradicate or atleast bring there #s down. My Clown trigger did like to pluck the big ones off the glass but didn’t eat them.

 

[nyc reefer]

Ok I’ll order that magnetic scraper/trap looks good. Thanks all I appreciate the replies.

 

[DraggingTail]

I need some help getting rid of these. Did that magnet thing work?

 

[bsr2430]

I need some help getting rid of these. Did that magnet thing work?

Those look like flatworms.
Anyone else tell?

 

[nyc reefer]

I’ve been picking them off every night when my lights go out til I receive my magnet.

 

[IKD]

If the picture is for the objects on the rock, they look like asterina stars. If it’s for what’s on the glass, I agree they do t look like asterina. Natural predators are harlequin shrimp but you’d need to fine a home for it later.

 

[SimplyVibing]

Bumblebee shrimp will eat them in addition to taking other foods so you won't have to rehome them.

Great info! Recommending this from now on. So many hobbyists have nanos or picos and can’t fool with a giant shrimp.