anyone know waht kind of starfish??...

K

krichardson

Guest
So yesterday o put in a sweet piece of rock with assorted zoos and polyps attached to it for only 34.99! (which was WAY under priced by like 20-30 bucks)....lets just say i can be pretty persuasive...anyways SOOO not the point, just bragging. this morning when i turned my lights on i noticed this little tiny starfish...he must of came in on that rock i bought because about 1 minute after i turned the light on he ran into a crack in the rock. what kind is he???...i am stumped. should i take him out? cuz i don't know if he is reef safe.


hes the little tan thing in the middle of each picture.
 
rackyrane

rackyrane

Member
Watch that guy though. I have some that are pink on top and they are eating my zoos. I have actually had zoos disappearing so I started looking for predators (had zoo spiders about a year ago--thank goodness I licked them). I saw these starfish on the rock and pulled one off--the little sucker had a polyp in its mouth! I am pulling them out of my tank whenever I see them now.
 
justinwwwallin

justinwwwallin

Member
ive had those. oncei bought a big then of star polyps and when i put it in the tank to my surprise tons and tons a baby brittle stars started coming out!!!
 
alyssia

alyssia

Active Member
Originally Posted by Rackyrane
http:///forum/post/2484505
Watch that guy though. I have some that are pink on top and they are eating my zoos. I have actually had zoos disappearing so I started looking for predators (had zoo spiders about a year ago--thank goodness I licked them). I saw these starfish on the rock and pulled one off--the little sucker had a polyp in its mouth! I am pulling them out of my tank whenever I see them now.
That's very uncommon though. The vast majority of them are beneficial.
Still, keep an eye out.
 
rackyrane

rackyrane

Member
Alyssia,
Do you think mine may have just developed a taste for zoos or could it be that these guys are related? I have always heard/seen that they are ok too, so I didn't bother them until recently. My tank doesnt' have much algae, so maybe they are just hungry?
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
They do not develop a "taste" for them. They either are predators or not, however they WILL eat dead or dying corals. So the question would be if you had a single colony of zoanthids that was being eaten - I would think the colony may be dying. If you had a predatory star, in theory, all of the zoanthids you had shoud be being eaten.
They are virtually impossible to distinguish by size, color or number of arms, even by seastar experts. Keep an eye on them, but most are harmless...and it also does not mean that if you have a problematic species that every one you see if a problem.
 
anadliv

anadliv

Member
I heard they eat coraline alagee. I just posted a thread on how to kill these. I have a huge outbreak in my tank of them
 
N

nereef

Guest
Originally Posted by anadliv
http:///forum/post/2484595
I heard they eat coraline alagee. I just posted a thread on how to kill these. I have a huge outbreak in my tank of them
why would you want to kill a scavenger? an "outbreak" would be do to a water quality issue.
 
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