My harlequin shrimp have decimated the asterina starfish population in my tank (as they should have!), and due to their ravenous appetite, I now need additional asterina starfish. If anyone has a considerable amount they would like to donate (I’ll even come out and collect them myself) to our cause, it would be greatly appreciated. Thanks guys!!
They do such a good job that this becomes a real problem, getting them enough food to keep them alive.
Wonder if it might be better if you can catch 'em and sell them to someone else with a starfish population. just a thought.
[quote=“houndsbayman, post:2, topic:5970”]
They do such a good job that this becomes a real problem, getting them enough food to keep them alive.
Wonder if it might be better if you can catch 'em and sell them to someone else with a starfish population. just a thought.[/quote]
John I’m sure josh and jess bought the shrimp just cuz it was cool :
:
Like i said josh, i have lots you can pluck from the 125, theres 20 on the glass alone at least
but I heard they consume mass quantities, and dunno how many they actually eat :
:
don’t some people keep a chocolate chip star in the fuge, and just cut sections of leg off from time to time for feeding? sounds gruesome, but i thought i read that somewhere
We actually purchased the shrimp because the starfish were eating my bird’s nest and stylophora. Now they’re catching up on the population of stars. Also note, all my “fluffy” corals have recovered.
Jess suggested we do the chocolate chip idea. But is that even sustainable?
In the meantime, I’ll seeya this weekend John.
-Josh
Give this a read…its about breeding, but it covers the feeding part, sounds like choc chips are best suited for captive regeneration
john is abso right. they can eat a choco star’s arm for a long while. u may need 3-4 stars to always have a spare and a regenerating and one in the tank–unless u want to cut an arm off of the star yrself. too ugly!
I could house that shrimp for awhile. I do have problems with astria’s irritating to the point of killing zoa’s I am sure I have hundreds of them in my tank. they cover everything.
I’m thinking it’d be too difficult to catch them. I’m going to take the choco star advice and see how that plays out. Thanks for offering up a happy home though, I appreciate it.
Thanks for the info guys!
-Josh
[quote=“StoneReefer_210, post:8, topic:5970”]
I’m thinking it’d be too difficult to catch them. I’m going to take the choco star advice and see how that plays out. Thanks for offering up a happy home though, I appreciate it.
Thanks for the info guys!
-Josh[/quote]
Just run a siphon hose from the DT to the sump with a large net/bag on the end of it and siphon the stars into the net.
Hows about a butter tub of the larger variety of micro brittle stars. i got bunches of them under every rock. they get up to 1.5 inch wing span or a little bigger. multiply like crazy. I’ll bring some to the meeting for you, Jess. I think they could reproduce faster than the shrimp would eat them.
[quote=“kaptken, post:10, topic:5970”]
Hows about a butter tub of the larger variety of micro brittle stars. i got bunches of them under every rock. they get up to 1.5 inch wing span or a little bigger. multiply like crazy. I’ll bring some to the meeting for you, Jess. I think they could reproduce faster than the shrimp would eat them.[/quote]
I read that serpent stars are not on the menu. It’s thought that these kind of stars are too fast. Would that apply to your stars? Regardless, I’m always down for stocking little critters in the tank.
You’ve got a PM Ken.
StoneReefer do you have any other shrimp or inverts in with the harlequin shrimp? Fast moving fish? z<>z
Jess and I stopped off at DPA last night to grab a Choc. Chip. It’s hangin out in the sump for now.
I think I’ve found an adequate ‘network’ of places to find Harley food. Thanks again Reefers!
[quote=“Lynchie, post:12, topic:5970”]
StoneReefer do you have any other shrimp or inverts in with the harlequin shrimp? Fast moving fish? z<>z[/quote]
The purple Tang can be flighty every once in a while. There’s a couple cleaner shrimp and cucumbers too.
Why do you ask?
-Josh
Because I was looking into getting a pair myself, to put in my small clown tank but I already have a cleaner and a decorater crab plus a emerald green and I did not want there to be an issue because I read they can get scared easy by fast moving fish and other things and go into hiding. So I thought I’d see if someone who actually has them had any issues. :BEER
I don’t have any crabs or anything, but when any fish go near them, they throw their claws up and do a dance. It’s quite amusing! I say go for it if you’re cool with their carnivorous nature.
Thanks to your post I now have my own harlequin shrimp 
and found a fish store to take a bunch of my corals to… oh yeaaaa
:-)###
[quote=“JustSumGuy, post:16, topic:5970”]
Thanks to your post I now have my own harlequin shrimp and found a fish store to take a bunch of my corals to… oh yeaaaa
:-)###[/quote]
cool stuff is just contagious ::
Tell me about it, I also want to get a Pom Pom crab PoM :: also known as the boxer crab. They have anemones for hands! I already have a decorater crab that chops off a polyp or two to hide himself… So cool!
Hey I’m a few days late but I wanted to chime in here.
I bought a single harlequin shrimp to work on my Asterina infestation in my old 90 gallon. When I say infestation, that’s not doing it justice. There were thousands of asterina stars. I’d siphon a couple hundred off the glass every week and that didn’t even begin to put a dent in their population.
Within 2 months the single harlequin shrimp actively hunted and destroyed every single last starfish in the tank. He was a killing machine. He had to have eaten over 100 per day. There was no place in the display that an asterina could hide. I’d see him swim up to the surface of the tank to pick them off the glass and dig into the sandbed to pull them out if they were partially burrowed.
It’s unlikely that any tank, even with a refugium, would ever be able to produce enough asterina stars to keep up with the appetite of a harlequin shrimp. I’m glad to hear that you’re moving to chocolate chip stars. That’s going to be more feasible.
[quote=“Lynchie, post:18, topic:5970”]
Tell me about it, I also want to get a Pom Pom crab PoM :: also known as the boxer crab. They have anemones for hands! I already have a decorater crab that chops off a polyp or two to hide himself… So cool![/quote]
Thats’s the first time i’ve ever heard “I have a crab that chops off a polyp” and “So cool” in the same sentence ::
the pom-poms are cool, but the only time i ever saw em’ in person was at dpa a couple years back… they were sooooo tiny >:::
[quote=“ClownfishSushi, post:19, topic:5970”]
Hey I’m a few days late but I wanted to chime in here.
I bought a single harlequin shrimp to work on my Asterina infestation in my old 90 gallon. When I say infestation, that’s not doing it justice. There were thousands of asterina stars. I’d siphon a couple hundred off the glass every week and that didn’t even begin to put a dent in their population.
Within 2 months the single harlequin shrimp actively hunted and destroyed every single last starfish in the tank. He was a killing machine. He had to have eaten over 100 per day. There was no place in the display that an asterina could hide. I’d see him swim up to the surface of the tank to pick them off the glass and dig into the sandbed to pull them out if they were partially burrowed.
It’s unlikely that any tank, even with a refugium, would ever be able to produce enough asterina stars to keep up with the appetite of a harlequin shrimp. I’m glad to hear that you’re moving to chocolate chip stars. That’s going to be more feasible.[/quote]
…basically they’re ninja assasins… and i want a pair :GEEK:
but they they don’t go above a mantis shrimp on my list of wanted “cool critters”