Larger Asternia, bad?

[ntayler]

Found this guy in a filter sock I ran for a couple days.

Much larger than the few quarter inch ones I had seen a few months ago and presumed harmless. I haven’t seen one on any corals. I threw this one in the fuge for now, or should I get rid of it?

 

[DSC reef]

It's hard to distinguish the good from bad. They reproduce rapidly if the food source is there. We ended up with some that eat algae and ones that eat our utter chaos zoas. They put a large dent in our colony so any that are seen are removed.

 

[ntayler]

Well I’ll let him stay in the fuge for now. Now even sure what happened to the small ones i had seen, maybe growing into monsters like this one

 

[Bret Brinkmann]

Never heard of an asterina getting that size. The asterinas I had were blue or some combination of tan and grey. The ones with blue I always saw eating the coraline, but the others I only ever saw eating film algae. I started watching closely after another member posted the same thing.

 

[Peter K]

We had asterinas that destroyed our acans in a big way, threw a harlequin shrimp in our tank and they were all gone in a few weeks.

 

[DSC reef]

Never heard of an asterina getting that size. The asterinas I had were blue or some combination of tan and grey. The ones with blue I always saw eating the coraline, but the others I only ever saw eating film algae. I started watching closely after another member posted the same thing.

I've pulled out some asterinas almost as wide as my thumb. I was shocked as well.

 

[Katrina71]

Must be from the South.