Are these reef safe?

I've been finding a few of these in my tank, very few and far between, but I was wondering if they are reef safe stars!

I am not sure what kind of star it is even.

Thanks!

 

How long have you had them, and how large are they? If they grow to no more than 1/4 inch, then they're in a group known as "Microstars". Mainly detritivores, they will also graze on GHA, Cyano, and Diatoms.

Oh, and yes-- Most definitely reef safe.

Cheers

 

I've had them for about 4 months....they are small....I have not seen one larger than 1/4''.

I heard they can eat some SPS....like Green Bali....is it true?

 

they wont touch any corals. like mentioned above they eat poop, waste and GHA

 

iv heard there are some with 7 legs that may munch coral but your only has 1-2-3-4-5-6 Legs HAHAHAHA!!!

 

There are a LOT of species of starfish in the Asterina family. Most are not hitchhikers and are never seen in aquariums. Of the few that do make it to our aquarium, only one or two are coral eaters. The most common one that occasionally makes into into our tanks that is bad is brown instead of white or beige. Most asterina legs are not symmetrical. However, the legs on the predatory stars ARE VERY NOT SYMMETRICAL and one or two legs will be substantially longer than the other legs.

 

I've got the same stars in my tank. Dicovered the first one about 6 months ago. Most of them are in my sump, Ive only spotted 1 in dt. I haven't seen any damage to corals yet.

 

His looks pretty brown to me and that leg on top is longer and fatter than the others. Is it a predatory one?

 

I use a real scientific method on these. I pick them up and put them on a coral. If after 24 hours, my coral is fine and the star is back on rock or glass, I pretty much assume they are fine. ;D I've never once lost a coral. There is a picture on here where it looks like a Asterina star mowed a stripe through a bunch of coral polyps. However, to me the eating pattern is very orderly like nudibranchs do. I have no way of proving this one way nor the other but I suspect a nudibranch put that path of destruction on the coral and the star was there on clean-up duty.

If you go to GARF.org and type in asterina or predatory star, several pictures down you'll see the one that I have actually seen eat coral.