What are this

josegarzaro · Feb 21, 2016

I found this little guy in several spots in my tank are they ok or not there cute

BossGT911 · Feb 21, 2016

it is a asterina starfish ,they are not bad just can be invasion sometimes but wont kill anything

dmh41532 · Feb 21, 2016

Everyone has a different opinion with these starfish, personally I remove them if I see them. The reason is a few years ago I had some, I saw one attached to a zoa frag, after it moved on some of the polyps had been eaten. They can also quickly over populate and be a real pest. Other people have no issues with them though.

BossGT911 · Feb 21, 2016

i just depends but i see your point

josegarzaro · Feb 22, 2016

Nice I feel bad for the little guy there nice to look at but I can see how they populate so fast

benapilot · Mar 1, 2016

I've got the same little guys popping up all over the place recently. I've seen them off and on over the years, just not this many. Only change in the system is I'm running without a skimmer. I don't see any on my corals, but not sure if they're going to cause future problems.

4FordFamily · Mar 1, 2016

Asterina starfish.

I seem to see mine increase in population with higher nitrates and phosphates. They've not hurt anything that I've seen but I do remove them by hand when it's easy and I'm bored

Mike_J · Mar 1, 2016

dmh41532 said:
Everyone has a different opinion with these starfish, personally I remove them if I see them. The reason is a few years ago I had some, I saw one attached to a zoa frag, after it moved on some of the polyps had been eaten. They can also quickly over populate and be a real pest. Other people have no issues with them though.

Yeah, when I had my 29g biocube, these suckers ate my Utter Chaos polyps! :mad:

andys · Mar 4, 2016

I have them all over. is there anything that likes to snack on them ?

cilyjr · Mar 4, 2016

Harliquin shrimp will eat them but be aware that Harliquin will only eat starfish so once the population is decimated the shrimp will starve if not fed regularly.

mniemann · Mar 4, 2016

4FordFamily said:
Asterina starfish.

I seem to see mine increase in population with higher nitrates and phosphates. They've not hurt anything that I've seen but I do remove them by hand when it's easy and I'm bored

^ This