Serpent stars

[JoDrapes]

I just cleaned my tank, I know they are in there, but this has never happened: I think all of the starfish in my rock have all come out. Anyone think this may be a problem?
I'm not sure if this is a healthy population or not. They seem to be growing in numbers and size. Also, at the moment they are all over my coral.


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[54seaweed]

wow that's wild never seen them out and about like that how big is your tank looking at that rock and back wall it may be time to thin the heard , behavior like that leads me to think they are hungry , if your over populated you can sell them off to a fish store most will give a buck a piece store credit for them , I have around 10 that I keep in my 90g that range in size from around 2 inch all the way up to around 18 inch I feed the rocks once a week with shrimp pellets to keep them fed , if I find new ones roaming I put them in my hospital tank till I find a few to sell but mine really don't seem to multiply as i siphon out all the little stars I find during water changes , they are harmless but if they get hungry I can see them doing what they are doing in your tank , there out looking for food and will even snatch a fish if they can ,
This is my biggest one 18 inch grabbing shrimp pellets I dropped on the rocks, I've had him over 6 years , times my friends thought he was a octopus lmao

 

[JoDrapes]

They seem to have crawled back into the rocks now, but have left the water cloudy. It looked like they were excreting a white milky substance. Glad I changed the filter and carbon today, the skimmer is working overtime.


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[Sniperhank]

I remember when my tank was at that life stage. I had hundreds of them in the rock. If I fed the tank or disturbed anything while cleaning all the arms would come out to feed. Having a ton of these guys points out what is going on in the water column, lots of junk for them to eat.

 

[54seaweed]

how big is your tank , looking at how there all over seems you got more than you bargained for , most fish stores will give like a buck each of store credit if you need to thin them out some , when you do water changes try to suck out the small dime sized ones on the glass it will help keep the population down , and if you see any green ones get rid of them as they seem to cause the most damage to fish ,inverts , rock work as they'll rearrange and to some soft corals as they get huge , there also great escape artists so keep a tight lid ,
the white ones stay around 4inch , red get around 8inch , yellow get around 6 inch , grey get around 18inch , green get around 24 to 30inch the biggest of all , most serpent's will eat fish if hungry but if you keep them fed to avoid that they will leave your fish alone , I feed them sinking shrimp pellets , the green ones go after fish no matter what you feed them they are just mean also strong they can move rocks
if I remember right Gregcoyote has a big green one ,

 

[Sniperhank]

Those ones pictured won't get any bigger than what they are.

 

[mr_X]

They are perfectly fine and I've seen this a few times. They just think they are in danger from the parameter change and feel they should spawn to save the species. No need to worry or kill them off, to just to go out and "recharge your cleanup crew" shortly after. These are the good guys and you can't have too many.
As Hank stated, these are adults. They will not get huge and consume your tank in a giant starfish frenzy