Is this a bad starfish?

Discussion in 'Inverts' started by onefang, Sep 24, 2011.

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  1. onefang

    onefang Plankton

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    So I found this little guy in my tank the other day, and I am thinking it may be an Asterina. Should I pull it from the tank, or leave it be? I have a variety of softies in this tank, and I'd like to keep them from getting munched if possible. So far I've only seen it cruising around on the glass when the lights go off, but who knows what it does after I go to bed.

    Do these little guys really go for polyps, or are they ok? The guy down at my LFS said that he's never had a problem with them.. but I typically take their advice with a grain of salt.


    it's about the size of a pencil eraser.
    [​IMG]
     
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  3. schackmel

    schackmel Giant Squid

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    yeah it is an asterina........harmless IMO. I think they are good cleaners, I actually have placed them in my SPS tank from other peoples tanks. They leave corals alone, the only problem is they do reproduce rather fast. They will drop a leg and that leg will soon become a new star. So far though I have not had a problem with the population!
     
  4. onefang

    onefang Plankton

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    Well, my daughter and wife are totally in love with it, so perhaps I'll leave it in there and see what happens. It's interesting how much conflicting info I've found on these, makes it hard to know which is right. I suppose I'll just have to see for myself :)
     
  5. HollyG

    HollyG Teardrop Maxima Clam

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    I have a bunch in my 33 gallon and they leave all of my corals alone. Sometimes i see them lounging across my star polyps but I have never seen any chew marks or anything on any of my corals. in my opinion they are harmless grazers.
     
  6. Mr. Bill

    Mr. Bill Native Floridian

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    As with most anything else, there are different species of asterina stars. Some will attack a certain type of coral, but the majority of hitch hikers are detritivores or algae eaters... unless it came in on it's target prey. That's where you might be finding the conflict in info. :)
     
  7. onefang

    onefang Plankton

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    I've been monitoring them for a few days now, and it seems they leave all my corals alone. The spend most of their time tirelessly cleaning the algae off of the glass and LR. The only negative thing I've noticed, is that they seem to be attracted to the newly growing coraline algae that is growing on the back glass. Other than that, they seem to be more efficient algae consumers than the two cerith snails I have in my tank. I started with 2 and now there are 4, so I suppose that is another negative. They do reproduce quickly.
     
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  9. coraladdict

    coraladdict Plankton

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    I have at least 100 of these in my 75 gallon tank. They have never seemed to bother my coral and look cool on the glass at night.
     
  10. ilikespam

    ilikespam Feather Duster

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    I think these little guys are cool.They do tend to find the coraline rather quickly but i think they just clean the top layer off it and move on.I have these in my tank too and i just started getting coraline and they found it faster than i did but like i said they dont eat a noticeable amount of it.My lfs said they were only bad because they multiply so fast but who cares if there becomes more than you want just pawn them off on a friend or drop in the tank at petco.LMAO.