is this a pest? if so what is it?

[HiFidelity]

found it in my quarantine, its size is about 5mm and it's flat looks like a starfish underneath

 

[goldielocke76]

It's an asterina star. I've heard mixed things about them being pests or not. I have head that linkia starfish eat them though, LoL

 

[Kensington Reefer]

When they are on the sides of the tank I leave them alone, but when they are on my polyps, of any kind, I remove them.

 

[sfboarders]

It's an asterina star. I've heard mixed things about them being pests or not. I have head that linkia starfish eat them though, LoL

I think you mean harlequin shrimp will eat them. Those suckers can spread. If they get out of control and you dont like them find a harlequin.

 

[Coral reefer]

I don't usually worry about them, but do suck them out with water changers

 

[HiFidelity]

cool, thanks everyone

 

[HiFidelity]

Hello everyone so it turns out these are NOT harmless, in fact they're trying to kill a bird's nest acro frag I picked up a week ago. This article confirmed it for me;
http://www.garf.org/Star/starfish.html
I'm noticing the exact same symptoms described and when I looked into my QT this morning sure enough one of these stars was at the base of the frag mowing down the flesh & leaving behind a clean white skeleton. I'm going to go after them with tweezers and iodine over the next week....

 

[650-IS350]

they can turn to plague proportions if not put in check. Some are known to eat Zoanthids and Palys. So us Z's and P's collectors chuck em as we see em. I don't take risks

 

[BAYMAC]

Hello everyone so it turns out these are NOT harmless, in fact they're trying to kill a bird's nest acro frag I picked up a week ago. This article confirmed it for me;
http://www.garf.org/Star/starfish.html
I'm noticing the exact same symptoms described and when I looked into my QT this morning sure enough one of these stars was at the base of the frag mowing down the flesh & leaving behind a clean white skeleton. I'm going to go after them with tweezers and iodine over the next week....

That article is a decade old... Sat, 4 Mar 2000 21:54:10 -0800

some are bad, most are not. I never once got any bad ones in my entire reefing career.

 

[HiFidelity]

I would have left them in there, typically I don't remove anything from the tank unless it's harming it (still have my kenya trees) but these things appeared in my quarantine first after I threw the frag in there and today when I saw it eating the acro that was all the reason I need to remove them all whenever I see them. Acro coral > some little ugly brown stars hands down, haha.

 

[Coral reefer]

Check for aefw too

 

[HiFidelity]

I have and so far I've seen nothing crawling on the acro besides the starfish, I dipped it in iodine once already I'm going to wait a little longer & dip again, I think I'm going to order a bottle of revive as well but I don't want to mix treatments

 

[goldielocke76]

It's an asterina star. I've heard mixed things about them being pests or not. I have head that linkia starfish eat them though, LoL

I think you mean harlequin shrimp will eat them. Those suckers can spread. If they get out of control and you dont like them find a harlequin.

Nope, I meant linkia. There are some posts out there, if you are trying to figure out what they eat, that people have pictures of the linkias eating these little guys. Some say that their linkias do better when the asternia star population is high. They have several pictures of the linkia on the glass, eating an asternia, and they have progression shots. It's really neat. Now whether or not that's their natural diet, I'm not sure. All I can speak for is what others have posted on other forums.

 

[650-IS350]

BTW if you search around there are reports of these guys eating acro's too. besides the predation on zoathids and Palythoas.