Unresolved Baby starfish??

I don't have any pics since these things are too small. They're all over the glass scattered, who knows where else since that's all that makes them visible. They're probably only 3-4mm in diameter max and have 7 appendages/legs? Center is whitish. I had a few asterina stars in the tank that I didn't think survived cycling with the peaks in all the levels since after a while they disappeared. I just introduced a few more that hitchhiked on the St. Thomas mushroom frag I just got this past weekend. I'm sure they couldn't have reproduced that fast. Any thoughts?

 

REMOVE THEM, they eat coral!

 

They're asterina. There are some out there that are reported to consume coral, but I have yet to come across one that does. Make sure you don't act in haste to get rid of something that very well may not be a problem.

 

Long legs or short fat ones? Can't ID without knowing at least that.

 

Traditionally, you don't see tiny microbrittles scattered all over the glass. You may see a couple at a time, but I've never seen a plethora except hanging out within the rock crevices.

 

My grayish white ones would gather on the glass sometimes, the striped ones never did though.

 

They are very tiny like I mentioned and if they are asterinas they aren't adults.There's really no gurth to their appendages at all,but they are visible.The legs are longer than their center.The asterina's I've seen in my tank all have six legs weather complete or partial.These have seven.I just noticed them recently so I can't mention as to weather I've noticed growth or not.I'll keep an eye on em but some will perish for sure this weekend when I scrub the glass clean of what small amounts of algae are on it.They're also not congregated at all,just randomly scattered.What else in marine aquaria has legs evolved around a central system that clings?

 

They come in all different varieties.

A friend of mine had ones that stayed at this size.... they never grew any more than that.



Here's some that I had... they were bigger.





Here's my microbrittles....

 

Man...That's a lot of stars on that glass!!

 

Great pics, Incognito.