Starfish

[lberkman17]

I have this coming out of my Live sand I find it on on tank glass often thinking its a starfish.

 

[neeker4]

I have one of those too... No idea what it is but on mine i can see little "arms/tentacles" looking things searching for... Whatever it is it is searching for... Hopefully someone can give us an answer as i have been wondering the same thing...

 

[Raleighfishnerd]

Asterina starfish

 

[JustinKBreen]

Asterina starfish

Yup. Harmless neat little hitchhiker

 

[blert]

There are (unconfirmed) reports of these little guys devastating SPS corals. They can also populate to plague levels if there is enough nutrients available. Just keep an eye out and if they start to get out of hand then pluck them out and dispose of them.

 

[begginersluck]

I once bought some love rock and fish from a guy breaking his tank down and he had millions of these dudes. His tank was also an absolute state so clearly nothing went directly into my display. The QT was covered in the little white stars and soon disintegrated.

 

[mr_X]

I have never witnessed an asterina starfish eat sps corals, nor have I ever heard of that happening, however, I have witnessed asterina starfish that I've had for years in a tank suddenly develop a taste for soft corals overnight.

 

[Ericwm]

This just happened to my zoas, I had them for 9 months and the starfish just as long. I lost a colony of 30 or so zoas and had no idea how. I just saw one on a zoa on my other colony. I want them gone, they were kinda cool though before they started eating my coral.

 

[mr_X]

Are you sure about that? You should have seen the starfish on the zoas and them closed up long before you lost the colony. They can't kill off a colony that quickly. I would pull them off and I would see a tiny bite mark here and there, but not like you say.

 

[Ericwm]

It was over a couple of months, I just never saw what was happening. I noticed them slowly going away but thought it was something I did wrong, it still could be but it only affected one colony and now I'm seeing it happen to the other. I saw an star on one yesterday.

 

[mr_X]

The experience I had was hundreds of stars all over the paly colony, and when I removed them, they left bite marks. Check under the star. I don't think this is happening if there was only 1 on the colony.