Tiny white hitchhiker starfish eating my coraline?

[stryker]

So I have never been able to maintain great coraline algae growth in my tanks. Even nice coraline encrusted purple live rock peices that are placed in my tank seem to fade away slowly. They get these bleached out spots all over them and look very blotchy although there is healthy coraline in other places.

I never really worried about it and attributed it to too much light. But the other day I placed a cool looking peice of plating coraline algae into my display to see if i can get this species of coraline to grow in my tank. I placed it in a shaded area away from my halides. The next day i noticed a couple of those tiny white starfish (you know the ones that came with your live rock and multiply like crazy) on the coraline algae peice. I checked back a few hours later and noticed that there were some bleached spots on the coraline about the size of the starfish.

Could these little starfish be eating the coraline algae? I check my nano at work - that has faded coraline problem as well, and noticed an insane amount of these starfish on the rocks.

Anybody notice the same problem? Does anybody have great coraline growth with an infestation of these starfish? Is there anything that eats these pests? I remember hearing that harliquin shrimps eat them but I'm not sure.

Thanks for looking.

 

[Konadog]

stryker_578, I had a few hundred of those star fish in my old 100 gallon tank and never had a problem with coraline.

Harliquin shrimp do eat them, and is a good way to slowly rid your tank of them.

 

[JasonRan]

Stryker,
I have a bunh of those in my tank and THEY DO Eat the coraline. The little Asterina seems to like nothing more than a nice purple tank I am picking them out everyday, and seem to have them under control. I feed them to my acan, seems to like them.

 

[rudeanduncouth]

It is important to note that there are dozens of different species of Asterina. Some that even eat SPS.

 

[Konadog]

Yes, there are many different type. Here are the ones that did nothing but eat algae in my tank:

I have heard that the darker ones like SPS. Don't let color alone dictate which are the good/bad ones, it's to hard to tell. If you think that they are causing problems, pull them out.