Found this guy on the glass this afternoon....

i think i've heard of these before, but i cant remember what thier called to look them up...

i think i know its a pest, but its the first one i've seen... so it must be a new arrival in the new xenia rock i got...

 

Asterina star

 

I've got'em too...there are 2 schools of thought on this. Some people say they eat coralline, here's what I do know. They reproduce like rabbits, I don't freak over them, but I just get them out when they're easy to reach. Grab the bigger ones with your fingers, suck the small ones up with a turkey baster.

I give them to my kids, they take them to school and give'em to their friends.

 

Alrighty... well, i like the turkey baster idea, might just use a syphon hose... same idea...

cool, thanks!

i just realized that i put this in the wrong area... sorry about that.. well, not too wrong, it is still an invert.. but i should put it in the identification area... i just saw the "I" and clicked... hehehe

 

YEP Asterina STARS and they will eat your coralline. I slowly but surely and VERY diligently picked everyone out with tweezers and now they are gone. Without fail the moment I saw one, I plucked it out. I also hunted them at night when they really come out. In the end it really did not take all that much time to pick them out but then I never let them get out of control to being with.

If you see a little bleach white area in the middle of a patch of coralline on the rock then look for an asterina!

 

The ones I did have never bothered anything.As my tank matured they all or nearly all of them disappeared.To remove them is up to you,some say they are bad and some say they are okay.

 

I have a few of these in my tank. I dont have a problem with them, but i dont have much coralline either.

 

i desperately want for my coraline to grow, so i syphoned him out...

 

i've seen them in my tank before but haven't made a fuss over it. we have an urchin who noms most of our coralline anyway. and the urchin is WAY more interesting than the algae.

 

yea, i can definately see that...

 

I have them in both my tanks and have never seen them do harm to anything. I think they're cute little suckers and guests are fascinated by them. Okay that might be stretching it a bit. :lol:

 

I've got lots of them in my tank/fuge (50+) and they don't seem to bother anything. Until they do start to annoy me they'll be staying.

 

Mine behaved themselves for years. I had no problems with them and only ever saw them on the glass. Then a few months ago, I started finding them on all my corals, and the corals were being eaten. Keep asterinas at your own risk -- there is a chance their tastes will change.

 

Mine have definitely eaten coralline. But I've heard only the ones with a bluish spot will eat coralline and mine have the blue spot.

 

i'm wondering if maybe this isnt what was eating on my xenias....

 

I have xenias and haven't seen any on them, yet anyways. Guess that could change down the road.

 

If that were the case, some of us would buy them by the dozens! :lol: