HELP what is this?

[Sinalie]

I bought some new coral and there's one critter and one possible critter. I want to make sure it is safe or should I get rid of them.

Thanks!!!

Here's the pictures

Starfish- Good or Bad?

other mystery thing- good or bad?

Any help would be great!! RC rocks!!!

Thanks again,
Stephanie

 

[Fat Man]

Asterinid Star


Linky

Generally thought to be good.

 

[sps_addict]

2nd pic is a Convolutriloba retrogemma sometimes called red planaria flatworm, or rust brown flatworm.

 

[Monkeyfish]

Starfish = good
Flatworm = bad

 

[Sinalie]

so does everyone agree that I could use Flatworm eXit for the flatworms??
Then leave the starfish alone?

 

[Monkeyfish]

Sounds like a plan. Try to siphon as many of the flatworms out of the tank both before and after the Flatworm exit. When they die they release something (body fluids?) that can foul the water.

 

[The steven liu]

Starfish = good

It is usually good but I've heard stories of them getting over populated and starting to take over the tank. Yes, they do breed easily and speedy in captivity. So if your tank has high nutrition and high amount of algae be prepared to deal with a baby boom.

 

[Snooker00]

Get your self a Harlequin shrimp or two= no star fish.

 

[Sinalie]

I can't use the shrimp, I think the lionfish would eat it. There's two starfish on the rock, I'll pick them out if they become a problem. OR buy a Harlequin shrimp or two and put them in a 10 gallon tank and just feed the baby boomers to them. hmmmmm sounds like an idea. Thanks Snooker00!!!!
As for the flatworms, as soon as I found out what they were (thanks to you all) I took a turkey baster and started siphoning them out. I caught 15-20 so far. I'm not finding too many more but as I do I'll siphon them out until the flatworm eXit arrives in the mail.
Thank-you all for your help!! I can alwasy count on the people here at RC!!!!
I'll keep you posted.

 

[subcrx]

If you have any corals, I would get the starfish out.. look at this article.
http://www.garf.org/news26p2.html

 

[subcrx]

I took 2 of those starfish out that were getting started on my corals. looked exactly like that. I think they will eat anything in front of them.

 

[Letmegrow]

The GARF article said they ate SPS.
Not anything infront of them.

 

[BrianPlankis]

The number of people that find that these starfish do damage to corals has been extremely low and so far mostly SPS. I would say innocent until proven guilty on the starfish.

The flatworms are a bad news if you have excess nutrients in your system. I would recommend a QT tank for ALL purchases so you can discover these things in the QT and only have to treat the QT, not the main tank. A good article:

http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-10/sp/feature/index.php

Brian