Starfish?

I found this today moving around and thought it was a starfish but im not sure. anyone know what it is?

 

Asterina starfish. I'm pretty sure. I think they are cute and a fun addition, but I've heard they can get out of control, number wise.

 

oh yeah i have two now.. they are near each other
yay!? i jst read they can eat your coral.
i wondering if i should remove them or jst see what happens this week

 

Ha, i used to have a ton of those in my tank! Only coral i had was mushrooms and they never seemed to mind them. Somewhere along the line they all disappeared though. Had some good ups and downs with this tank over the past couple years so not exactly sure when or what caused it. Especially since the fish have lived (miraculously at times) through it all...

 

i had a couple star fisht just show up in my tank too although they didnt look like your mine had some dark spots on it so i think they are baby choclate starfish

 

do you have soft corals? If so thats what they eat

 

I have hundreds of asterina and have never lost any softies to them.

 

You must have lots of coralline then.

 

I have an infestation of asterinas. They were fine in the beginning but their population took off. My rocks are slowly turning white. They have eaten all of my coralline off of my purple back wall and now the coralline is pretty much gone from my 72. Once you run out of coralline, instead of starving, they (some strain) will start with corals. I have ripped a couple off of some pink palys, keds reds zoos, and a devils hand leather. I am going to get a harlequin to try to control their population. Luckily my local reef club also has a lot of these and after a few weeks of the harelquins work, I will pass the shrimp on through the club. In small populations, they are reef safe. In explosive populations, they are reef safe until there is no more microalgae and no more coralline. Thats my opinion and experience.

 

Great info mattheuw1
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