Asterina stars all gone??

[Reef Pilot]

Originally Posted by reefwars

butterfly is my guess

But I've had my butterfly for a couple years too, and this is a recent happening. I have never seen them eat an asterirna, although they do pick away in the rocks all the time, and who knows what they find. I do have a lot of pods, too, which are even visible often in the daytime, crawling around on the rocks.

Having said that, though, I was away last month to Maui for 10 days. Maybe the butterfly (or something else) got hungry and developed a new taste.

Maybe I should relocate a few asterina from my sump back to the DT, and see who goes after them. Then again, would rather not risk another infestation of them.

[toytech]

I had thousands and then same thing one day poof no more , same with the tiny round snails , i guess they just ran out of food or all got the flu and died.

[Proteus]

The tiny white snails are collinista snails. Harmless. I have 540000 right now. I attribute it to over feeding as I picked up some anthias that were a little skinny. I've paid off the food and asterias ate on the decline but not so much for the snails. Funny though I don't have high nutrients. But the food is red plankton and cycopeze so I imagine it gets trapped in rock work