SPS and Asternia Star Fish= Dead Sps

[trueblackpercula]

Well after much though I figured I would post my findings on this little devil of a star fish. I never thought they would do any harm until I could not find the problem in my Sps. The picture below clearly show the Asternia’s eating away at my SPs. I am so upset as this was one of my very first pieces almost 2 years old. It has giving me 6 babies through out the tank that are all doing well.

I was thinking about trying to save it by leaving it in the tank and getting a harlequin shrimp. I fear if I remove it the star fish will move onto another coral and start eating it. So I have decided to leave it until the shrimp get here to control them. I have taken some pictures to show you how bad these things are and the damage the can do over a 2 day period. I have removed as many as I could (over a 100) find only to see that they all look the same green/blue in color.

Ok if you have them destroy them or give them to a person that will keep them in a system that does not have SPS. At first they did no harm what so ever in the tank to anything. All they ever did was eat algae off the glass and the bottom of the star board. Then I noticed a couple of days ago that my SPs was not opening up like it once did. Now I started to take a closer look and BANG there they where eating away like it was thanksgiving meal.

I have done all that I could to take the best possible pictures I could to help others. As of today nothing else has been affected by this little devil. Take a look at the pictures provided and you will see what they can do.

Michael Iezza (AKA trueblackpercula)

Before the AttaCK !!!!!

AFTER THE ATTACK

[happyclam]

I'm new to SPS and I don't have the trained SPS-keepers eye for spotting pests, but to me, the coral looks exactly the same. I probably missed something. Also, have you been able to get rid of them or are you still trying to eradicate them? Good Luck!

[Canarygirl]

Wow, that's a huge bummer. Thanks for posting your experience so that other people can prevent this kind of event in their system.

I have a bloom of these things in my tanks, too. So far I haven't found them on any sps, only on the walls of my tank and on my rock. But I ordered 2 harlequins and put them in one of my tanks. (I have a flame hawk in the other tank that I'm afraid would eat them).

I haven't been able to get them off of the tank walls without dropping them on the sandbed, though. I've tried tweezers and gloved fingers and they are difficult to grab on to!

Did you remove them without removing the coral/rocks from the tank?

[Travis]

In my experience, asterina stars are completely harmless. They will, however, feed on areas of sps corals that have recently receded. Are they actually feeding on healthy coral tissue or just on areas that were already receded?

[acdraindrps]

trueblackpercula,

Could you take a picture of them next to a dime for size comparison? Thanks.

[trueblackpercula]

Travis

In my experience, asterina stars are completely harmless. They will, however, feed on areas of sps corals that have recently receded. Are they actually feeding on healthy coral tissue or just on areas that were already receded

From what i can see yes they are eating away at it. There is nothing wrong with any other Sps in my tank. Water is all good and everything has full PE. As you can see from the pictures the inside of the coral is completly white and there is no tissue at all.

[trueblackpercula]

Here You go this is the pair of tweezers I used.

[reefkoi]

In my tank, I've seen these guys really multiply lately. I bought a couple harlequins to see if they can knock the numbers down. IIRC Garf stated there were different types and so its tough to say which are which but I cannot see a huge benefit of having these in a tank so I'm going the "get rid of them route"
Seems the acropora eating pest list just keeps growing......in your case looks like stylophora is a target as well
C

[trueblackpercula]

reefkoi i look at your avitar and see Asternia

[johnnybravo234]

I have some of those little suckers in my tank. They haven't hurt any of my corals as of yet. I usually capture them if they are out when im doing a water change and then toss them in the softy tank. I'll be keeping a watchful eye on them from now on. I hope your corals make a full recovery. Btw your build thread inspired me to go BB. Nice tank

[trueblackpercula]

Thanks for the kind words johnnybravo234

Michael

[gasman059]

Originally posted by Travis
In my experience, asterina stars are completely harmless. They will, however, feed on areas of sps corals that have recently receded. Are they actually feeding on healthy coral tissue or just on areas that were already receded?

ditto
asterinas will go after damaged or unhealthy coral. IMHO that's not your problem.

[TomRep]

Supposedly, the gray ones (as seen above) are the ones that will 90% of the time eat corals. the white ones are normally harmless. I've had a couple gray, or gray-ish ones eating my zoas, but never saw the white ones on any corals.
tom

[stevedola]

i have so many a. stars in my tank if they were predetory I wouldnt have a single coral in my tank alive. they do not eat healthy corals ime. now if the coral is receeding or there is another pest munchin' away and then the stars clean up the decaying flesh is another story. just because the stars are on the corals that are 1-infected or 2-receeding doesnt mean they are the cause.

[InsaneClownFish]

Mike Palletta talked about this in a talk to our reef club. The more colorful stars..usually yellow are the SPS eaters. The grey or black and whites are harmless Asterinas.

Most likely you had an event in your tank and they are consuming decaying proteins or possibly even algae.

[Genetics]

I'm also going to jump on the non-predatory side of this. I've had these in my tanks well over a decade and have never seen a negative effect associated with their presence.

[Blugobi]

^^^^^nice Avatar^^^^^


Try a couple of Harlequin shrimp if that is possible in your tank, they will make a huge dent in the star population...however it depends on your other inhabitants....Harlys are a bit on the delicate side.......

Geo

[hyperfocal]

This guy:



did this:



I pulled the star off the bare spot as it was eating. I watched it chowing down. There is no question that it was eating the SPS tissue. The frag RTNed within a day or so.

If you haven't had SPS eaten by an asterina sp. that's good news, but it doesn't mean it hasn't happened to someone else. I haven't lost any more SPS to them since. I *have* seen them glommed onto zoa polyps like a champagne cork on a bottle, but zoas grow fast enough that I don't care... that, and they don't RTN.

[trueblackpercula]

Genetics

I've had these in my tanks well over a decade and have never seen a negative effect associated with their presence.

can you post a picture of the 10 year old asternias? seeing that you have had them the longest maybe you can tell use what type of setup you have. have you ever had any sudden deaths with sps that you could not figure out? also what type of system are you running? is it a DSB or BAREBOTTOM and is it Sps or a mixed reef? I am trying to get as much information from everyone to try and figure out why in some tanks they kill sps and in others they do not. Also is there an abundance of algae in the tank for them to feed on and maybe this keeps them happy?
Thanks
Michael

Ok so the big question is if its not the asternias which I think it is then what is it? I have checked again and the tissue loss is getting worse and now within the next day or so I will have to remove the decaying colony.

If you look at the picture posted above you can see that the tissue is completed gone and all that is left is a bare coral bleach white. If there was something wrong in the tank then all Sps would be affected and that's not the case.

what else could it be? is there anything that I can check? well I will try and post some new pictures and you guys be the judge.

Michael

[stevedola]

IMO, for that amount of damage you would see the colony littered with the stars not a few sparcely populating the coral.

[trueblackpercula]

ok sow what could have cuased this to happen to such a happy and large colony thats 2 years old?

Michael

[stevedola]

is that a porci colony? they are usually sensitive to alk swings and water flow changes. have you changed anything lately?

[trueblackpercula]

Nope nothing changed it has attached it self to the rock work over the past 2 years. Nothing has changed in the tank no new fish or anything. It has been a very happy camper until th eother day as you can see from the pictures.

Michael

[Travis]

It could be that different species will eat corals. I have green with white ones, white ones, tan and white speckled ones, brown ones and gray ones in my tank. All of these have been harmless. I have not encountered asterinas with the coloration that hyperfocal posted.

Just because one coral has problems in a tank doesn't mean that you will see problems in other corals. I remember a presentation by Mike Paletta, IIRC, where he was checking out a tank where they couldn't figure out why this one coral kept having problems but everything else was fine. It actually turned out to be a small area in the tank that had very low ORP compared to the rest of the tank. Just wanted to point this out as an example that it is common for only one coral in a tank to have a problem and that the answers to "why" could be very hard to come up with.

Also, sps corals will adapt as they grow larger. I have seen countless times where colonies will become large and recede the tissue in the shaded areas and towards the bottom of the colony. I believe this is just an adaptive response because the coral is wasting energy to keep these areas of the colony alive which recieve very low flow and light.

[Amphiprion]

Originally posted by Travis
In my experience, asterina stars are completely harmless. They will, however, feed on areas of sps corals that have recently receded. Are they actually feeding on healthy coral tissue or just on areas that were already receded?

That is my observation, too, and in multiple tanks. I had boatloads of Pocillopora and Asterina spp., all coexisting perfectly well.