ID this starfish

[stelow]

These starfish have hitchhicked in and are mutiplying quite rapidly. Any advise on what they are and if some control method should be used?

 

[Loralie]

I have the same in my tank. They are harmless. To control their populations I bought a pair of Harlequin Shrimp. They are cute little guys and do a really nice job of keeping the star numbers down

 

[Andrew]

I don't know the name but I know when I asked for IDs on those, I would told to remove them ( which I did ) because they start to split like crazy and may eat your corals.

 

[peregrinus]

http://www.garf.org/news26p2.html#STAR
there is some info on them. i have had them for a long time they have never harmed anything in my tank.

 

[z_rivers]

that is an asterina starfish. the one you have is harmless. the coral eating ones tend to have radical leg shapes.

 

[kappaknight]

Define radical? He has about six in that picture and the ones in the back seem to be a bit abnormal. I actually have a few in my tank too. So far they haven't harmed anything... I even saw this website that were selling them for $9.99 a piece.

I can't tell for sure if these are harmful or not though.

 

[templar_1109]

there are 2 types of these starfish, both will have crazy looking legs. to tell the diff between harmless and harmfull look at the legs, if theres six than there the harmless kind but if there 7...they eat corals, get rid of them

 

[stelow]

Thanks for the replies; these must be the six leg variety none have seven. They must reproduce the same way, by just droping a leg that starts a new starfish, so there are some with less than six legs. I have started to remove some of them as they come on to the glass.

 

[bertoni]

I would just ignore them. They are multiplying due to a good food source, likely algae, so removing them will just allow more algal buildup.

 

[szwab]

FWIW i pull mine, especially after seeing them up on corals then the next morning the flesh gone. to me that ='s coral eater

 

[stelow]

I think these are the hamless variety, but there population is exploding so I'll catch and remove a few once in awhile. Thanks again for the replies.

 

[JR719]

I used to have them and they would multiply very rapidly. They were a tan to whitish color. I thought they were great since I did not have to pay for them. As soon as I got into sps, I noticed they liked to eat the corals. It was a pain to get rid of them. None of the legs seemed to be the same length and were all over the corals. Took awhile but now they are gone, better safe than sorry I say. Just my 2 pennies.