asterina stars

[gajake]

After my tank has been running for about a year I am seeing some asterina stars. At the same time I am seeing small white dots on the glass that might be eggs. The stars are white with a few dots on their backs. Always on the glass (at this point. During the past two weeks I have seen and removed 5-6 of them but I hate to kill them if they are not a problem. I have read that only the brown ones are dangerous to the corals. Does anyone have experience with these little strange shaped stars?

 

[ReefCheif]

They will eat zoas, Ive seen it personally in my tank on my frag rack. They will also over populate very quickly. Remove them, get a harliquin shrimp, something. I would not leave them be, but thats just me.

 

[gajake]

That's pretty much what I thought. I'll try to keep removing them as I see them. Hopefully I can keep up with them (so far not that many). The shrimp probably wouldn't last long with my Marine Betta and large Sally Lightfoot crab.

 

[ReefCheif]

My lobos eat them too. When ever see one I just feed it to a lobo

 

[jahmic]

I've caught the dark ones munching on zoas...white ones seem to stick to my glass and go after film algae. I usually leave them be unless I catch them on coral.

 

[gajake]

These are the little stars. I have only seen them on the glass and I think you are right - they seem to be on the algae film or the hair algae I have on one corner View attachment 18467

 

[jda123]

I have them for years and never had them bother zoas. Perhaps they just don't bother them enough to notice.

 

[SynDen]

Ya white one pretty much stick to film and coraline algae. They can multiply rather quickly by splitting themselves. I have a few in my tank that came in as live rock hitchhikers. Never really had a problem with them. I kind of like them

 

[SquidBreath]

I have a ton of these...infestation really...hundreds certainly...
Don't know about brown ones all are white in my tank. No problems with them yet.
If you let them get big enough they actually become symmetrical.
I have one or two that are bigger than a nickel now.

 

[Gonefishin]

Get a harlequin shrimp. They eat star fish.

 

[Fitz19d]

Harlequin will devour all asterina's even in a big tank like a 120 in a matter of a week or 3. Then starve unless you farm some starfish arms. Another drawback is how tiny they are and what tankmates might want to eat them.

 

[Aaron]

I've had them in my tank for 4 years, they don't harm my corals. I see them on my coral no more than the rest of my clean up crew. My zoanthids do close up when any of my clean up crew passes over them, but are unharmed.

If you don't like them, just remove them manually.

Regarding the Harlequin, I would be concerned about the long term success of keeping it alive?