Exosphere’s vanishing - losing colony need help

[VintageReefer]

Dang, I gotta monitor my zoas at night. I've lost a colony of candy apples, and starting to lose a candy apple red colony. All others are doing just fine. And I do have asterina starfish all over, always have.
Perhaps they are not as reef friendly as I thought.

Cool frag rack too!

Thank you! This is so useful because I have a lot of stuff that I want to grow out into mini colonies and not have it attached to my rocks

For the starfish…I have been reefing 20+ years and always had these tiny starfish in my tanks. I’ve lost zoas over the years and sometimes I know why and sometimes I don’t. What I didn’t know, is that there are at least 15 species of these tiny starfish and that SOME not all, will eat certain corals, including zoanthids. I will say all the starfish I found on this frag plug, were ones with red backs, as mentioned earlier. Watching my tank closely now I do see I have multiple types and not all have the red backs.

My LFS has harlequin shrimp, I’m going to get one, he can have as many as he wants I’m done with these pests.

 

[VintageReefer]

Bwahahahahha they are everywhere…for now



Problem solved

 

[VintageReefer]

Just an update, my starfish problem is resolved and the exosphere colony has been regrowing since the predators are removed, and I have nearly a full recovery. I can only show pics from one angle but they are filled in all around

 

[VintageReefer]

Exosphere growth since may

 

[ryshark]

Exosphere growth since may

Awesome! That’s a great 5-month recovery. I’m trying to rid my tank of asterinas. I’ve had a harlequin shrimp for several months. I don’t see any big asterinas anymore, however, I still have plenty of the small asterina.

 

[braaap]

Exosphere growth since may

Remarkable recovery. When you make a frag I’d be interested.

 

[VintageReefer]

Remarkable recovery. When you make a frag I’d be interested.

I gotchu

 

[VintageReefer]

Remarkable recovery. When you make a frag I’d be interested.

4 newer polyps fragged for you. Let’s give it some time to heal and grow out a bit, make sure it’s healthy

 

[ReefStable]

Love seeing the full comeback! My Exospheres always struggle, but no other zoas do. They can be touchy.

 

[VintageReefer]

Love seeing the full comeback! My Exospheres always struggle, but no other zoas do. They can be touchy.

A hobbiest before me, bought the og expsphere and made a frag and spent a year growing out the colony in his tank.

I bought that colony, and then nearly lost it to the starfish. But once I figured out the issue and removed all of them (thank you mr harlequin!) the remaining polyps resumed multiplying and I essentially grew out my own colony in a few months.

I do believe tank raised corals do better and the history of a frag has a impact on its future.

This seems to be a very resilient strain

Frag is starting to open