Small star near my clam

[ThrillYa]

Just thought it was cool to see this little star approaching my clam which recently moved close to the glass.

 

[Anonymous]

Looks like an asterina starfish. Get rid of it.

Peace,

Chip

 

[Anonymous]

Cute even if they are evil to corals.

 

[ThrillYa]

Now you tell me! LOL I'll remember that the next time I see em.

 

[ThrillYa]

Hmmm, I've found a couple posts saying these asterina are not bad and may even be good. I even found some guy selling them on Ebay too. LOL Not that that means anything.

http://www.reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=81459
http://reefs.org/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=48546

Whatcha think?

 

[Anonymous]

Well I think the bad comes from them indiscriminately eating algae or whatever food they like which they do by squirting their stomach out and digesting everything (even coral) then retracting it which is why these guys get a bad wrap. I've seen some on my SPS but then again I also see algae on some of my SPS. Whomever hates them though will always have some story about how they KNOW they saw the star doing something evil to a frag or something

I wouldn't worry too much about removing them, they mostly like will multiply faster than you can get them. If you see them on the glass simply scrape them off then wait until the next time you see them.

 

[ThrillYa]

Thanks for the added info. I guess I'll keep it around and see what happens. I've seen em before and haven't had any noticable problems or and bloom of additional stars for that matter.

 

[wade1]

I have hundreds of them in my tank, the swarm the rocks at night and I've never (ever) seen one on live coral tissue. Totally harmless from all I can tell.... and like most snails they prefer the glass to the rock surfaces.

 

[Anonymous]

Yep I too have these by the thousands in my own tanks. I often see them perched on top of a closed zoo polyp perfecty wrapped across the top. Once they move on the polyp opens up just as pretty as before the star.

They mob the glass during lights out when I don't bother to scrape it and retreat when the lights come on. If they were detrimental to my inhabitants than I would have suffered total devestation in my tanks with the size of the population I have.

 

[Ben1]

There are more then one type of Asternia stars and I have both. I was thinking of a harlequin to get rid of them, would that work?

 

[Ben1]

There are more then one type of Asternia stars and I have both. I was thinking of a harlequin to get rid of them, would that work?

 

[wade1]

Harlequins do eat them, although I don't know about the feasibility of using them to eradicate a tankful of stars.... If you had plans for feeding the shrimp beyond the time when the asterina were mostly depressed, it should work.

 

[Anonymous]

Yeah the Har. Shrimp would put to good work, but to be perfectly honest unless you see them physically destroying a coral or if you see your corals declining for some unknown reason I would not worry about them.