Starfish, Starfish, Starfish

[mrdarieus]

Good evening everyone, I have a question about my 55 gal tank!!! It has been up and running for 4 mos. tomorrow, while looking at it today I noticed what appeared to be 4 small starfish ranging in size, they are very small the boggest about the size of the bouncing blob(emotioncom). I am wondering why do they appear to have 6 legs and not 5? I looked at Doctor Foster and Smith web site and the look to be sand sifters!!! Can anyone give me some advice please!! What would be some more great additions I can add?

55 gal
80 #'s LR
40 #'s LS
1 yellow tang
1 bicolor Angel
3 blue damsels
12 snails
3 powerheads

[Kullas]

I would say that may be getting close to the bio-load for fish wise maybe adding some coral would be nice but the angle may pick at it

[Lifestudent]

Whenever someone has an ID question, it's most helpful to also provide an photo of the in question.

With that said, if these are small starfish (<1" diameter) and are tannish/light brown and oftern have disformed arms ranging from 3 to 11 arms, then I believe that they are the kind of seastars that are reefsafe.

Ron Scmick mentioned them at MACNA last year. They eat detritus which is a good thing.

Please click on this link ( http://www.scientificcoral.com/index...arfishTiny.asp ) and let me know of this is what you have.

Bob

[mrdarieus]

I found the i.d. of the starfish I have, they are astrina stars,,,, as for the stock, I had planned on trading in the damsels and getting 3 chromis. One of the damsels is very very aggressive!!!!

[Kullas]

Originally Posted by mrdarieus

I had planned on trading in the damsels and getting 3 chromis.

[bluegrasssweety]

You may want to check this out. I thought they were harmless but looks like they are not.

http://www.garf.org/STAR/starfish.html

[hesstondc]

I had those for more than 5 years....I bet there were 100's of them in my tank. I never had a problem with my acros or polyps.....