Tiny starfish - friend or foe?

[ufotofu]

I've got a mess of tiny (no larger than a dime in diameter) starfish in my tank. Most of them have legs missing, some have 6 or 7 legs, but they are all very small and seem to graze heavily on the rock and glass. Never see any on the sandy bottom. They seem to be increasing in number - now spotting perhaps 50 of them in main tank.

DO these play nice, or are they coral munchers? Do I need to weed them out occasionally or just let them ebb and flow with the nutrient load?

They look like the starfish in the hh faq pics. Tiny. White-ish. Some pigmentation in spots.

THX

 

[Anonymous]

Asterina possibly. There's a long-running debate as to whether they are a menace or not. Some claim they eat SPS from the base up. Others claim they've had them in their tank for years with no ill effect.

These guys?

Some of the debate and some tips on how to remove them here.

 

[ufotofu]

Exactamundo! I've started pulling them as I see them. My zooanthids appear to be hassled by something - we'll start with these guys since water chem is good.

Thanks!!

 

[Arie]

I swear, some of them are evil and some are okay. I've had to pull a few off of my Kenya Tree base, and when you pluck them off they rip off the top layer of the coral. I've tried using a turkey baster to blast them with water, but I can't say that it's worked well. It just seems to blow sand around and piss everything off.

If you come up with a way to get rid of them, please let me know!

-A

 

[Anonymous]

Check out the link at the bottom of my post. Guy in that thread claims to have found a more effective (yet still time consuming) way of removing them.

 

[ufotofu]

I've just started plucking them off. They don't seem to be taking anything with them when I do this. I guess I've pulled about 50 or so out of the tank so far. My candycane seems to be doing much better.