Are these asterina starfish eating my zoanthid??

[lulu1228]

My zoanthid has looked worse and worse over the past couple weeks and I just noticed there are little asterina starfish all over it. Is there any correlation???

 

[anthonymckay]

Hard to say, there's many different species. But in general I remove any asterina starfish I see in my tank just in case.

 

[Jekyl]

It has nothing to do with the asterina imo. I had hundreds in my tank at one point and never effected anything.

 

[Tamberav]

My asternia eat algae unless a coral is sick/dying already, they will certainly eat dead/dying tissue. Not healthy stuff for me though.

Honestly though.. it looks like something is wrong with your zoas... algae on them? They may be cleaning up any dying polyps or eating the algae on them...

blue light photos suck but this does not look normal

 

[OrchidMiss]

My zoanthid has looked worse and worse over the past couple weeks and I just noticed there are little asterina starfish all over it. Is there any correlation???

In my experience, yes. However, they didn't seem to touch any palythoas, only zoanthids.

 

[vetteguy53081]

My zoanthid has looked worse and worse over the past couple weeks and I just noticed there are little asterina starfish all over it. Is there any correlation???

Pic is too dark to see anything. Please repost under white lighting. Zoa closed up is stress from too much flow, too little light, high nitrate and phospahe, high salinity and sediment all over over them.
Take a turkey baster and gently blow over them and you will likely see a bunch of sediment dust fly off them. This often is a cause