Unknown- looks like starfish??? Help ID.

jasno999 · 02-09-2008, 04:34 PM

Unknown- looks like starfish??? Help ID.
Ok. SO My tank was in need of some cleaning today. I decided to do some pruning and re-aranging. I also dug down into soem sections of my sand bed to just get it agitated and ewhat not.
Well I am looking at the tank about an hour later and I see this white thing on the glass. I look closer and notice it is moving and it looks like the center section of a starfish. It looks like a starfish that hads all it's legs broken off and had basically a mouth left and a few small leg sections....
I have no freakign idea what it could be. I used to have a large brittle star in my tank but it dissapeared about 2 months ago and I figured it was dead. It was brown and huge. This thing is white and tiny....
Here are some pictures. Hopefully somebody can ID it.

JY13131 · 02-09-2008, 04:37 PM

Asterina star fish
I have some
I think they are generally ok, but some go after the coral

aquawolf · 02-09-2008, 07:12 PM

Asterina Star

If you see one then you have more. They split themselves and regrow new limbs all the time which is why this one only has 3 full legs. If it is staying on the glass for the most part then it is probably eating film algae.

ChrisPrusha · 02-09-2008, 09:13 PM

One or two came in on a piece of LR last year, and now I have them everywhere.

jasno999 · 02-09-2008, 09:37 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by aquawolf

Asterina Star

If you see one then you have more. They split themselves and regrow new limbs all the time which is why this one only has 3 full legs. If it is staying on the glass for the most part then it is probably eating film algae.

He was on the glass for about 5 mins. This guy then dissapeared....

ChilisREasy · 02-09-2008, 09:45 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JY13131

Asterina star fish
I have some
I think they are generally ok, but some go after the coral

the light brown dark spots ones..will eat montipora..trust me

ScruffyRubicon · 02-09-2008, 10:00 PM

Others eat zoo

Sndwave80 · 02-10-2008, 10:40 AM

I have them all over my tank and they have not hurt anything. They just crawl around and clean.

Caball362 · 02-10-2008, 11:12 AM

Do these come as hitchikers or what ?

aquawolf · 02-10-2008, 11:22 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Caball362

Do these come as hitchikers or what ?

Usually, but if you really want some I could probably put them in a bag and ship them to you via Priority mail.

I think I have hundreds of them in my 75 reef.

Caball362 · 02-10-2008, 11:23 AM

lol all i got is a nano frag tank so far so it would not be fair to em if ya did ship em lol thx for the offer theo ^^

Theo i will take a baby of your Kracken lol

aquawolf · 02-10-2008, 11:56 AM

Yeah, the asterinas are usually pretty small but I am afraid they would overtake your nano in no time at all and you would then hate me forever for giving them to you in the first place.

All of the research done to date on the Kracken looks like it will not reproduce in my tank, unless I was able to find another one some day.