salinity and tiny star fish

I usally keep my salinity a little on the low side 1.023, but I have noticed if I forget to top off for a few days and the salinity rises I have an outbreak of these tiny star fish. Has anyone else noticed this? Do these star fish do anything for the tank other than make my cannary wrasse fat? HE does love to eat them; knocking them off glass and grabbing them before they hit the sand, but he's a little weird anyway, because, he pulls brissle worms to the top of sand and leaves them there for me to get out. Any way I'm off track here. Can anyone answer questions about star fish? I'm just wondering.

 

you are probably talking about asterina starfish, maybe you can describe it a little, wow seems like your wrasse has a lot of personality though, sounds like a neat fish
with the salinity change and the asterina starfish blooming the tank, not sure about that though, never heard of that

 

ya my guess is asternia stars google it and check if were right

 

They are asterina star fish. one article I looked up said they ate coralline algae; I hope not. one said they were part of the clean up crew eating derbitus. There really doesn't seem to be any reliable info on them. Nothing I read said anything about salinity so I see a new project in my future.

 

I have them popping up all the time, very harmless.....

 

If they are anything like Urchins the eaten coralline will actually spread faster when it poops.

* I am going to have to take that back as being unsure after reading a thread on nano-reef on how asterinas along with an alk drop resulted in coralline being mostly wiped out of a tank.