Found in Chaeto from LFS

[Michael Hull]

Hi all,

Before I load this into my new LR-200 Algae Reactor arriving today, wanted to make sure I wasn't bringing in anything I don't want.

I bought some chaeto yesterday from my LFS and saw this guy on the bag. Any thoughts on what it is? Looks like a star of some kind.

 

[Copingwithpods]

Astarina starfish, common hitch hiker, there are some species that will eat zoas. The ones that don't are still complicated, some people don't mind them others hate them as they can reproduce very quickly.

I had an outbreak of these in my tank and got them down to 1 by picking them off the glass at night a few days in a row. Wasn't a big deal and I personally like having a few of these guys around.

Any pics of the top side of it?

 

[minus9]

Asterina star. Most of them are consumers of algae, but there are some who eat corals. I find that most are the algae eating kind, but either way, they multiply like crazy and some people have issues with that part.

 

[X-37B]

They eat coralline and multiply as fast as they eat it lol. I pull 10 a day from 120. Have pulled over a hundred. This is what they do to coralline, the white spots.

 

[eschaton]

I would think there would be zero risk to having any asterina-style star in this situation though. They can't get past the return pump into the display after all, and they won't eat the chaeto in the reactor.

 

[motortrendz]

I would think there would be zero risk to having any asterina-style star in this situation though. They can't get past the return pump into the display after all, and they won't eat the chaeto in the reactor.

Youd think, lol. But my display is covered in them. I have to thin them out quite often or they get out of hand and start to shadow corals and eat all.the coraline of my rocks. Lol. But I have a frag tank hooked into my system recently and they're starting to show up in there. So they're making it down to the sump, hitting my return pump and getting pushed through my manifold into my frag tank. Lol. They're more nuisance than anything else. They get stuck in my reactors as well lol