Any ideas on what this is ?

[Dave_C]

Came down this morning and found this lad on the glass


Any ideas ??

 

[Garf]

Came down this morning and found this lad on the glass


Any ideas ??

Looks like an asterina starfish.

 

[thatindonesianreefer]

asterina starfish
Kill it right away

 

[thatindonesianreefer]

If you have soft corals, the stars will make a snack out of them

 

[Dave_C]

Aww no... little white thing needs to be killed ???

 

[Garf]

Aww no... little white thing needs to be killed ???

Upto you, lol. I had hundreds in my last tank for years without problem, then a few started eating stuff that I wanted them to leave alone.

 

[Reefer Matt]

Aww no... little white thing needs to be killed ???

No. Some species of them may eat coral, but not all. Most reef tanks have them. They tend to multiply quickly. Hard to know for sure which ones are which, though.

 

[Borat]

It's a snowflake...

 

[I never finish anythi]

asterina starfish
Kill it right away

Bad advice . They don't all eat corals . I have them in my tank and find them a great part of the cuc .

 

[I never finish anythi]

If you have soft corals, the stars will make a snack out of them

That's not true. Although some eat corals most don't .

 

[Borat]

Usually the ones with purple middle may eat zoas (and as far as I know - only zoas, other corals are fine), the others (that dont have purple dot in the middle) are totally harmless and are good cleanup crew.

I let both varieties exist in my tank as otherwise zoas would spread out too much. It's only when you have too many of these asterinas - they may become a problem. How many is too many? At some point I had around 500 of them in my tank - that was too many and I manually collected them for a few weeks to bring numbers down.

Both varieties would not touch healthy SPS - you would see them on SPS that's dead, weak or dying..

 

[Garf]

Both varieties would not touch healthy SPS - you would see them on SPS that's dead, weak or dying..

Maybe;

Asterina Stars - smoking gun

It has long been assumed by most that Asterina starfish only ate the dying segments of corals such as Monti digi and acropora or the algae that were invading a dying coral. I have evidence that this is not correct; http://i1269.photobucket.com/albums/jj597/Garf1971/60d4b1c5.jpg This next...

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