The spat collectors also often unintentionally serve as starfish larvae collectors in the same way they serve as mussel larvae collectors. When the collectors are removed from the water so that they can be cleaned of the predator, or so the small mussels can be obtained for culturing, they are riddled with small sea stars as Asterias rubens preys upon mussels of size relative to their own size (Per Dolmer, 1998). In other words, small sea stars generally ingest small mussels, while larger ones generally eat larger mussels. These small sea stars are very tedious to remove through hand picking, and the process is labour intensive. Other techniques are being applied over the world, including the use of hot water baths, the application of highly saline solutions, and quicklime treatments, which are used in Prince Edward Island, Canada (Locke et al., 2009), to clean mussel spat collectors of small sea stars. These treatments loosen the grip of the starfish on the spat collectors, causing them to fall off.