Small Serpent Starfish Eating Coral

[Insainoreefer]

Has anyone heard of small serpents eating coral? I have a tank that I service that small serpents are eating their way into LPS between the skeleton and tissue. I noticed that corals starting to look punky and not open quite as much, so I checked the water quality and everything checked out perfect. So I dipped them in Revive and found them crawling out of the coral, ALOT of them crawling out of the coral!!! Like 20 out of one coral and 30 or so out of a larger coral.

Now since I have dipped the affected corals they are opening up well and getting better but still having the occasional issue.

Does anyone know of a natural predator that will eat starfish to help keep the population down. I would rather stay away from Harlequin Shrimp because my customer does not like them. Any other suggestions would be great!

Any help would be much appreciated! :)

[Insainoreefer]

Bump

[Insainoreefer]

Badump-bump

[shrimphead]

why doesn't your customer doesn't like Harlequin Shrimp?! think you need a special type of Harlequin Shrimp to deal with serpents stars as well.

[Insainoreefer]

He doesn't like harlequin shrimp because he likes to have fromia and linkia stars in there and the shrimp eat them.

What I really need is a fish that will eat them and not eat the corals or snails!

[mndfreeze]

Harlequin shrimp do not eat brittle/bristle stars. They eat bat star types. Fromia/linkia/etc.

I believe it is bongo shrimp that eat brittle/bristle stars.