sps eating starfish

[favites]

Oh no, another thread on eradicating asterina starfish :> Actually, I have hundreds of asterina in my sps tank, but I have noticed in the last few months a few starfish on my sps occasionally. I did not think much of it until I started noticing little areas of white/dead tissue amongst an otherwise healthy coral, often in the middle of the coral not the base. Some of these starfish seemed a little bigger and darker than your average asterina, but I tried not to be paranoid until today where I removed this critter from a small colony and took a close up picture of the starfish. THe frag shows the white area where it was snacking on the left of the pic.

I cannot ID this guy for sure, but the 'crown' sure looks suspicious for a baby Crown of Thorns Starfish. Would welcome any input from those you can identify this guy. Regardless, it is only fitting that I relocated this probable crown of thrones to a more fitting fresh water throne.

 

[bif24701]

That’s not the typical “safe” asterina stars I seen and have. It seems that the dark ones do in fact feed upon corals at times. The light colored ones are different and do not appear to eat coral. They feed mostly on algae and coralline.

 

[nashorn]

Yea, I mostly have the light color ones. Seem harmless except to some zoas. I found feeding on my tubbs blue and on the pipe organ before.
To be safe you should get rid of the dark ones.