six arm starfish???

gdown

Member
I was veggin out in front of my tank today and lo and behold I see a starfish (I think) on the side glass with six arms. It's very small the size of a raisin and is a pale grey color. Does anyone know what this is. :confused:
 

iceburger

Member
i have seen several different kinds of starfish with 6 arms...it's almost always just an abnormality...aka... freak of nature :)
 

jedininja

Member
There are very many types of starfish and many of them have 6 legs. So it is not a freak of nature that it has 6 legs. I actually have tons of either the same or similar starfishes in my tank. They are in the astroidea sp? family. Many are harmless and only eat deterius and algae but others do actually feed on corals or sponges. So just watch them carefully. The spread like crazy so if you have the bad kind, take them out ASAP!!! I guess I got lucky and got the harmless ones.
 
G

glazer

Guest

If you got these, well nice little info on them at garf....
I lost some SPS frags because of the little buggers, borrowed Harlequin shrimp from a buddy and so far I haven't seen anymore. *sniff sniff* I miss the shrimp.
 

ophiura

Active Member
The class is Asteroidea (alll starfish).
The genus is Asterina.
They typically have 5-7 arms, usually with a few shorter than the others, and they reproduce by splitting (fission).
A search on this should turn up many posts (at least one a week). Most people have the variety that eats algal and bacterial films, which is why they are on the glass. GARF goes overboard in condemning the lot.
There are a few species that end up in the tank; all are nearly impossible to identify, even for experts. Keep an eye on them. If they get on your SPS corals and do damage, remove them. But they are not stupid and just wandering around the tank until they accidentally hit an SPS coral. If they hang out on the glass and rocks, then they are most likely the species that eats algal/bacterial films.
I have loads of them, but no SPS corals.
 
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