just found baby starfish in reef tank!

It's almost 2am here in Michigan and my daughter was up and just found a baby starfish. It's tan in color but no bumps on it's back, smooth body. I know nothing about stars other than the ones with bumps are bad for reef tanks. Help me before it slithers away! as in should I take it out?

 

It could be asterina, dont know for sure without pics, and if it is, be best to remove them. Some asterinas are and some eat corals. There is no way to tell for sure which it is without a microscope. Do a google image search on Asterina , as there are hundreds of types of them. If you can get a pic, I could tell you for sure if it is a asterina.

 

Geekdafied, I looked up the asterina and it looks like they have 5 arms. The one in my tank has 6 arms. I'll keep looking though, thanks

 

asterinas have up to 10 arms I think, the six arm Im pretty sure qare the bad ones. If there is one, there a lot more. They reproduce pretty quick.

 

the sixth leg means its splitting, reproducing.

 

Asterina are common hitch hikers. Can you get a picture of it? Thats the only way to tell for sure. IMO if you dont know what kind of star it is, remove it, most starfish are not reef safe anyways.

 

Not to freak you out or anything... The pres of the local club could not keep corals in is tank for some reason. He knew he had asterinas, but he was told by a marine biologist major(student) that asterinas were fine. NOT ALL ARE BAD, but it just so happened when I was his house looking at his tank, one was munching on a zoanthid he had just got. Needless to say we broke down his tank, and removed about 40 asterina's, when he thought he had like 4 or 5. The bad ones are typically real small, and do not get big.

I just dont want anybody to go thru what he did, he spents $100's trying to fix problems he thought he had cause he couldnt figure out why he couldnt keep corals for long, when all a long it was a starfish problem somebody said was harmless when in fact this particular species of Asterina sp. was not.

 

Check this out, it shows a six leg eating a zoanthid...

ZoaID.com! :: The definitive repository for named Zoanthids!

 

Thanks for all your info, I will search and destroy! My kid wanted to dry it out yesterday anyway. I guess it'll be a cool neclace!

 

Well, he's gone to hide on me. Do starfish usually come out at night? Wish me luck