Starfish in my leather

absolutecarrot

Non-member
What is this starfish type on my leather is it bad, it has a red center
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Hey @absolutecarrot, I have those all over my tank. They aren’t bad, but can be pests because they multiply asexually my dropping an arm off and that grows into another one. Overall for me they’ve done good cleaning the glass, but if you don’t like it a harlequin shrimp will kill them off. They are very cool shrimp but will eventually go for inverts after finishing off all the star fish. That’s my opinion on what they are and if they’re bad anyway. Sorry for the bad pics.
 

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Hey @absolutecarrot, I have those all over my tank. They aren’t bad, but can be pests because they multiply asexually my dropping an arm off and that grows into another one. Overall for me they’ve done good cleaning the glass, but if you don’t like it a harlequin shrimp will kill them off. They are very cool shrimp but will eventually go for inverts after finishing off all the star fish. That’s my opinion on what they are and if they’re bad anyway. Sorry for the bad pics.
Thanks, I removed it and haven’t seen any more.im pretty sure it is an asterina starfish.
 
Yeah. Like I said there more of a neuisance than anything else but if they just keep coming back you can get a harlequin shrimp
 

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Asternia starfish. Usually harmless but depending on the type they’ll eat something different. I’ve had white ones with grey centers - they stick to algae so far as I could tell. I’ve also had red and gray ones like the one in your picture; they’re also fairly harmless but are coralline algae eaters. Not terrible but would leave sizable pockmarks all over my nicely purple rock. Pretty safe rule of thumb is to take it out if you’re not sure.
 
Asternia starfish. Usually harmless but depending on the type they’ll eat something different. I’ve had white ones with grey centers - they stick to algae so far as I could tell. I’ve also had red and gray ones like the one in your picture; they’re also fairly harmless but are coralline algae eaters. Not terrible but would leave sizable pockmarks all over my nicely purple rock. Pretty safe rule of thumb is to take it out if you’re not sure.
Thanks I’m glad they don’t eat coral but I took it out anyway
 
been having similar starfish thoughts.. Saw one sitting on one of my Acan's a time ago, no visible trauma but concerning.

This past weekend I confirmed one of them dined on a different acan.. a starfish getaway is a pretty slow thing. have been yanking them now, had been neutral on them in prior larger tanks but not worth the worry in this tank.

it's a 5 gallon tank so food for them is in-demand by design.
 
All photos in this post are displaying asterina. As others mentioned, they are normally harmless, but can grow out of control after a while. I've had hundreds in my 155 for years now. My green coris wrasse prevented my adding a shrimp into the population though. The coris died a couple of months ago, so I went ahead and added a harlequin. The asterina population is dropping...
 
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