those broken little stars

[larrynews]

i know people say that they are not harmful, i'm not convinced, everytime i find a coral not well, it has one of them one it. i know it could be the effect and not the cause but if theres smoke most of the time there is fire. any thing i can can get to get rid of them besides a harlequin shrimp....thanks

[hdyoung]

Going on 5 years in my sps tank with tons of those little things crawling around. No issues.

The smoke-fire analogy doesn't work here. You got it right when you mentioned the effect/cause thing. Actually it's more of a "cause vs. correlation" thing.

When you see a dead racoon on the side of the road, it's always covered with maggots. Therefore, maggots must kill racoons. This also pops up frequently at RC with regards to bristleworms. When something in a tank dies and hangs around, the bristleworms find it and crawl over it and eat it. People start to think the bristleworms are actually killing stuff, rather then scavenging already-dead or nearly-dead stuff.

I have no clue what would eat those little stars. Most things that eat those would probably also eat tons of other little intertebrates in the tank as well.

[micki]

A harlequin (sp) shrimp will eat stars.

[rayviv]

Newbe Question; What broken little stars are being referred to?

Thanks upfront.

[Reefd Up]

Rayviv - he's referring to the billion species of asterina starfish.  Not quite a billion, but quite a lot.  Generally asterina starfish just eat the dead tissue of a coral...not the coral itself. 

There are starfish that eat corals (like the chocolate chip starfish, etc.), and starfish that look similiar to the asterinas that will eat SPS.  Last I heard, they aren't sure which species look like asterinas that eat SPS.

If your SPS have jagged bite marks on them, chances are, you have the bad starfish.  If you don't see actual bite marks, the starfish are probably just cleaning up the dead tissue.

Some of the bad asterina-look-alike starfish have a blue hue to them when you take them out of water.  Might want to try that.  But, some harmless ones do too.  Isn't this fun? 

Sorry I couldn't be more help.  Last I've heard, everyone is still pretty stumped on this.

Some starfish eat other starfish, but they're usually predatory on everything else too.  I don't know anything else available in captivity other than a harlequin for your situation.  (Might try manual removal.)

[larrynews]

good point hdyoung,  still i makes me wonder, but if know one else is having problems with them, and i havent had a problem with them, the past few years.  i guess i will just continue to watch.
thanks

[rayviv]

Rayviv - he's referring to the billion species of asterina starfish.  Not quite a billion, but quite a lot.  Generally asterina starfish just eat the dead tissue of a coral...not the coral itself. 

There are starfish that eat corals (like the chocolate chip starfish, etc.), and starfish that look similiar to the asterinas that will eat SPS.  Last I heard, they aren't sure which species look like asterinas that eat SPS.

If your SPS have jagged bite marks on them, chances are, you have the bad starfish.  If you don't see actual bite marks, the starfish are probably just cleaning up the dead tissue.

Some of the bad asterina-look-alike starfish have a blue hue to them when you take them out of water.  Might want to try that.  But, some harmless ones do too.  Isn't this fun? 

Sorry I couldn't be more help.  Last I've heard, everyone is still pretty stumped on this.

Some starfish eat other starfish, but they're usually predatory on everything else too.  I don't know anything else available in captivity other than a harlequin for your situation.  (Might try manual removal.)

Thank you Nikki;

Looking on google images I have found a lot of info and some very good pics of these starfish. And I do have some of them. Poop! (thats my bad word for things like this)

heres a link. http://www.garf.org/STAR/starfish.html
Thanks again.

[Reefd Up]

Ray, I advise you to be careful.  There are some reef-safe species that look exactly like the ones posted on GARF's website.  There are also non-reef-safe species that look like the good safe ones.  

What I'm saying is, if you aren't seeing damage to your corals, I wouldn't remove them.  Visual identification of predatory species that look like asterinas is really difficult. 

Starfish damage to a coral is a slow process.  They don't just mow it over...you'll see bite marks, more bite marks, and eventually the coral will be gone.  If you see a dead coral with a starfish on it...the coral probably died and the starfish was just cleaning the tissue off (which is a good process...not predatory.)

[chromiumlux]

Iv'e got tons of the asterinas in both my tanks. Iv'e also got a Harlequin shrimp that I acquired from Justin at Aquatic Specialists. This little dude demolished a sand sifting starfish in less than a week. Really quite amazing watching this shrimp dig this starfish up out of the sand and drag it off under the reef. He kept the star alive while he dined on it. Asterinas are actually just a snack for a Harlequin. I'm not sure if a Harlequin will survive on Asterinas alone. From what I've witnessed, These little shrimp have a healthy appetite and need to be fed at least once a month. If you got ornamental stars and want to keep them, dont add a Harlequin.