Microstar?

[Russ Braaten]

This is the first time I have seen this type of starfish. Is it what people call a microstar? It is a good thing right?
It's legs are less than 1/4" and it looks to be missing one leg.

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

Those are the ones. They are great little detrivores. Some of them can even be bioluminescent

 

[papagimp]

Hey russ, let me know if they start to propogate too well and ya need to get rid of a few.

 

[Russ Braaten]

Papagimp. I would love to have them propigate but I doubt tthat will happen. There are only two possible sources that they hitchhiked in from and one of them is the cup of sand I got from you. The other is from some frags I got from Charlie that were glued to homemade discs. I dopubt I have a second one especially a male and female.

 

[captbunzo]

Actually, you couldn't be more wrong - these little stars reproduce very well in a well setup and decently fed tank. If you have one, you probably have dozens of them in your tank. And if not, you will in a month.

When my 29g tank was setup, I added about 10 of these into the tank (bought at a high price online, silly me), By the time the tank was 7-8 months old, a spoonful of sand would yield 5-6 of the little critters.

 

[Dtking]

I have tons and tons of those!!!! and my tank is only 6 months old. I was told that they are really good filter feeders.

 

[captbunzo]

Filter feeders, nope. Detritivores, yep. They are really good for your tank.

 

[chris4693]

I bet I have hundreds of these, seems like everytime I do a water change and clean the bottom of my Bare Bottom tank I get about 20 - 30 and add them to the refugium. I will see what I can do about getting bags of 5 per bag and bringing them to the meeting this weekend.

This means I have to do a water change before the meeting, after working a 12 hours shift. It could happen! Mabey!