little starfish

I take them out when I see them

 

Are you talking about the Asterina starfish? I've never got these in my tank. I've heard they're a nuisance and should be removed asap. Also if you rip off a tentacle, it will turn into a new starfish so you need to make sure you get the entire thing when pulling them out of the tank. I heard Harlequin Shrimp eat these things and they look pretty cool.

 

I have had a couple get 1" or so. I like having the asterni stars around and leave them be. They are harmless and a beneficial part of the diversity of life in our tanks IMO.

 

I've read that there are 2 different types of Asterina starfish. The white ones seem to be the acceptable ones that do no harm to reef tanks but the ones that are darker, almost tan or light brown in color have been known to eat GSP, coralline algae and Zoas.

 

Harliquin shrimp do eat them. I just remove the ones I see to keep population down. If you see a few there are probably a lot more in rocks. I have never had a problem with them irritating corals but have heard of people that have. But I only keep LPS and sps so I can't say what they do to softies.

 

i have small brittle starfish that live in my rocks, they are harmless and a good part of CUC.

 

To keep the population in check I'll regularly pick them off of the glass in the morning. At night they tend to scoot around and stay put when the lights are on.

 

I want my population to get out of control so I can get a harlequin shrimp to eat them lol

 

I had some asterina starfish in one of my tanks at one point in time. Woke up one morning and my frag of blue cloves were gone and the starfish were all over the frag plug. Needless to say I went right out and bought a harlequin and within a month they were all gone. My wife thought the "baby starfish" were the cutest things ever until her cloves came up missing.

 

You missed a great marketing opportunity! If you had stars that would eat BCPs you could have sold them all over as nothing eats those things and if you had some stars that did - they would have been worth a mint. ;-) Seriously, BCP's can get quite invasive (been there) and some people like the look and others hate it once they get "established". They are also known for being "hot" or "cold" for a given tank (like Xenia) where in some tanks they grow out of control and in others they melt down. I suspect the latter is what happened in your tank but who knows.

 

It used to be my Sunday morning routine to harvest as many of these off of my glass and that seemed to keep the population in check. The last 3-4 months I haven't had that many and I don't know if it's related but I've notice my pigmy angel nipping at them quite a bit. before this I looked into getting a harlequin but it sounds like they can quickly eliminate the population and then starve.