baby starfish id help

[new]

i found a baby starfish the other day in my tank, its about the size of a dime. it is white with 3 full "arms" and 4 more developing and it is shaped just like a stereotypical starfish such as a choc. chip or bahama but looks like it is going to have 7 arms. i do have a bahama star so if they reproduce asexually maybe that is where he came from. any ideas?

 

[treble]

Possible its a coral eating starfish, small, white, any # of legs, theres almoast certainly many more.

 

[petcareplus2003]

It sounds like a brittle star. These are harmless to corals and I have about 100 of the things in my tank. They live in live rock and eat whatever food (flake in my case) that gets down too them. They do not grow very fast at all. They may just stay that size. mine did! I got all of mine from premium fuji live rock.

 

[adrian]

Do a search on Asterina They are fairly common, some are known to feed on certain corals, some do not, hard to tell the difference though unless a certain coral is being affected. HTH

 

[new]

thanks all

 

[nm reef]

New...here is a link I found on those lil white starfish....may not be a lot of help. But it does seem to indicate that for the most part the don't seem to be a major problem! I have several in my reef...along with numerous corals and the ones I have seem to be more of a scavenger than a coral killer....
Lil white star fish

 

[new]

thanks all, i been watching him and he only seems to be interested in algea and detrius for now but will still keep a eye on him just in case.