Harlequinn Shrimp and Chocolate Chip Stars

[CynthiaRose711]

This may be a dumb question, but if you feed harlequin shrimp using the leg amputation method, at what point do you feed them the whole star?

I have a pair of pretty small (I'm assuming young, like dime to nickel sized) harlequin shrimp and I've fed them a few legs and my star is down to 2 left. I was wondering like at what point do I just give this mans to the shrimp?

He could live in the back of my tank and hang out but my tank is an AIO with no secondary sump tank, so we are working with limited real estate and I would like to source a new star. I've accepted my fate as a dirty starfish hater for the sake of my shrimp, but I'm not sure if I should feed down until just the main part is left, or let the shrimp slowly eat my mans to death. I'm slightly worried about him eating my corals if I put him into the thunder dome, but it seems like the shrimp immobilizes them from what I've read?

Also I've read on here that the star can die and start decaying in the tank, and I would like to avoid that the best I can. I would try to experiment, but its my first salt tank and I would like to keep it as stable as possible and I'm emotionally attached to my corals. So I thought I'd ask here (sorry if this is the wrong place ;-

 

[ChrisPPolys]

I’d just give them the rest of the starfish. Be advised it’s tough to keep the three (harlequin/nano/corals) all together. I ran into the same problem with lack of real estate in my nano.
With no space to keep the chocolate chip I found myself just feeding entire starfish at a time. It became a force to find new chocolate chip starfish to feed the shrimp and ended up returning my beloved harlequin to the LFS before it starved to death.

 

[jabberwock]

That's not a starfish, THIS is a star fish!

 

[Stomatopods17]

When they're down to 3 I usually give the whole star.

Its better than risking them dying too soon as they can still get infected. 2 Legs is really pushing it.