Asterina Star on Zoa - Black/Darkened Tissue Within

[TateLitts]

I have plenty of asterina stars in my tank - they are model citizens. They crawl around and don’t seem to bother much of anything.

A month ago, I noticed an asterina on a GMK polyp. I didn’t pay much attention to it, figuring that the star was merely munching on film or whatever around the polyp. After, I noticed there was a black/darkened spot in the zoa, similar to that seen here. I dipped the GMK frag in Reef Dip, but that polyp eventually died. Today, the same sequence of events happened, sans the zoa death.

Do I have a rogue star? I’ve removed the suspect. Or is there some bacterial infection smoldering among my frags? I have many happy zoas throughout the tank, and haven’t introduced any new zoas within several months.

Thoughts would be much appreciated!

 

[fishguy242]

I've found the red/orange backs do the most damage to some zoas ,yes.

 

[TateLitts]

I've found the red/orange backs do the most damage to some zoas ,yes.

The suspect did have red speckles… I’d just expect the problem to be more widespread.

 

[Cool Ethan]

Exact same thing happened to me. I didn't think anything of it at at first because most google searches said they were just eating "around it". After several months I saw too many die under same circumstances. Have since started to hand remove all of them just to be safe.