starfish

[DaveC]

I have read about tiny 4 arm starfish before and I believe they are acro eaters if I remember correctly. At first it was hard to tell about after one week you can now see the 4 arms and it is staying in one area on one rock at least for know...light brown in color looks like its skin is a little fuzzy..should I remove it...can I put it in my sump?? or do you think it could possible make its way back??

Thanks
DaveC

[Chuck S]

How big is this guy?

The small tiny ones suspected of being acro eaters are seven arm with the other two arms being a bit longer than the others and they are smaller than a penny or the same size as a pencil eraser mostly.

[DaveC]

The starfish is probably no more that half inch from tip of arms, I was guessing its a starfish, but maybe not..someone posted a picture once of a starfish that was either deformed or not the usual shape of a starfish..mine is the same one are is just a stub..he reported that they went on his glass at night so he got the shot..mine can be seen during the day, and is only saying in a 6 or 8 inch area so far..and stays on the rock..I am not going to attempt to take a picture as I know it would add more confusion trying to figure out what it is...?? no corals seem affected and I don't even see it near any corals?? not sure what to think

DaveC

[Chuck S]

I will post a pic of the small ones and you can tell if its it or not.

[kevinpo]

Here is a picture of the type commonly found in the home aquaria. They are algae eaters and harmless to corals. There are ones that eat SPS corals that look very similar fortunately they are much more rare. The coral eating kind well,.... would be eating coral /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

HTH,
Kevin

[SueT]

My sis and I went to a couple of LFS's last week and I saw some different type of starfish. These are the exact duplicate of the one Kevin posted but on the top these had a reddish color that did not entirely cover the top of the starfish. It mainly was like someone had marked them with a red marker. These were all over the soft/lps coral tanks. I didn't ask about them but they sure did not look nice.

[Chuck S]

Thanks Kevin. The ones that eat SPS have the longer legs a bit closer together that being the most prominent difference from the algae eating kind above. I have literally hundreds of the ones above and they do not bother my corals so like Kevin said if the above pic is what you have do not worry.

[SueT]

I have got those kind also. The only time I find them on any of my coral is if there is a spot that is not healthy. Maybe a new frag or something and there is algae on the skeleton. They can wrap themselves all around that spot.

[kevinpo]

here is the same one taken with a flash. No red that I can see.

Kevin

[SueT]

That was what I meant. These with the red markings on just the top of the starfish look exactly like these. In color and shape and leg length etc. I was wondering if they were a new pest or something.

[DaveC]

Thanks for all the replies...I was away at school and have not looked at the board is the past few days...the one I found looked like it only had four legs...but as he grow (slowly) it looked like they were becoming more pronouned so maybe it had not taken its shape yet..don't know for sure..still crawling around on the same rock and the few corals that are attached to that rock look fine, no bare or
dead spots that would indicate something was feeding on the coral??

DaveC

[karlas]

i have starfish that look like that i actually got them when i got my det kit. i got some that were plain colord and 2 of them had bright red spots in the middle. neither have bothered anything that i can see