Help!! Acro bleaching, Little starfish?

[Eric P]

Here is what I have noticed. Over the past couple of days one of my acro's started to bleach a bit. Seem to have started in the back at the bottom and work it's way up. Not alot just a couple branches. Today I picked up the colony to blow it off and I saw some of those little tiny stars on the bleached part and some on the base. Needless to say I took the whole colony out and picked them off. I then put the colony back in and gave it a good cleaning with a power head. I took a couple pic's of the stars but can't find the wire for my cam now. I will post them later when I find it. Do you thing this could be the cause? Po4 was .2 so I am using some phosguard. I am going to do a wc tomorow. I will be cleaning the sand bed also. I am also starting to think about removing the sand bed and just leaving a thin asthetic layer. I have about 2" now. Let me know what you all think.

Eric...

p.s. The rest of the corals are doing fine. Clams are good. Just seems to be this one. I have had it for over a year and it has grown quite well.

[TimmyG]

Hi Eric,
Do these starfish have an odd # of legs?
If so I had the same problem.
Some say that they are just eating the dead and dieing tissue
but when I remove them the coral heals up.?.?

Check out this link.

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


HTH Timmy

[Eric P]

Thanks Timmy.
Yea they look like the ones in the link. These are grey with a red dot in the center. My tank is loaded with them. I never thought they did any harm.

Eric...