Tiny starfish- harmful?

[JBolt]

Found this little guy on a frag and wondering if I should put him in the tank or discard.  Has a black center grey body and white webbing in between legs and white underside.  About the size of two pen heads. 

[RayWhisperer]

Looks like an asterina star. Some have had problems with them, I'm not one of them. I actually added them to tanks when I didnt get them as hitchhikers. So, the choice is yours, really.

[JBolt]

Tempting, its pretty cute but dont asterina stars eat some types of corals?

[RayWhisperer]

Whether its starving stars, or a different species, nobody seems to know for sure. All I can tell you is I've never had any issues with them.

[Joevember]

I have 3 different asterina species: black topped ones, red spotted ones, and white ones. They all get along with everything I have in my tank. I have seen them on coral skeletons, but I have never seen a coral closed up or stressed out by them. 

Make sure you are checking out your corals to make sure they aren't a corallivore species.

[banasophia]

I remove them when I get them as hitchhikers; some people have problems with them reproducing rapidly and/or eating corals. Not worth the risk to me. 

[Clown79]

There are many species of asterina stars. The majority are completely safe.

 

I like them and have never had an issue with them.

[mndfreeze]

I like asterinas.  They are a low risk micro cleaner that helps out with cleaning small cracks in rocks and such.  There are a toooon of different species of them and it seems only a tiny tiny fraction, like 1% or less, are actually a coral risk and even that might not be true.  Most of what you hear about them comes from reefers making uneducated guesses because something is dying in their tank then blaming whatever creature happens to be nearest to it.   I've noticed when I have a coral that's dying, for example an acro I have right now because of a water issue I had, my hermits now like to pick at it and were I quick to judge I'd probably say the hermits killed it, but I know for a fact before that coral started having issues the hermits never touched it.  It wasn't until after it started dying that it became a food  source.  Many detrivores act like this.  Some are even beneficial to creatures because they eat the dying/necrotic flesh and not the healthy similar to how we use maggots for people with crazy infections and stuff in modern medicine today.

 

[JBolt]

Dang, I'm starting to wish I kept it, because that makes a lot of sense, from what I understood is that it was a 50/50 chance of them eating my coral.

[patback]

I purposely added some to my tank. 

[banasophia]

5 minutes ago, patback said:

I purposely added some to my tank. 

I would feel more comfortable adding ones intentionally that are known to be a reef safe variety. 

[patback]

12 minutes ago, banasophia said:

I would feel more comfortable adding ones intentionally that are known to be a reef safe variety. 

I've had them in every tank I've ever owned  besides the mantis tank.  I have personally never had an issue with any.

My non-taxonomical based opinion on them is that coral are already on the way out, form a small layer of algae and people assume that the stars were eating the coral.  

[banasophia]

13 minutes ago, patback said:

I've had them in every tank I've ever owned  besides the mantis tank.  I have personally never had an issue with any.

My non-taxonomical based opinion on them is that coral are already on the way out, form a small layer of algae and people assume that the stars were eating the coral.  

Hmm... I hear you on that, and they are pretty magical looking so I would love to have them if I knew they were safe, but I’ve seen people post what appear to be totally healthy zoas being eaten up in a couple FB groups I’m in, so it seems there’s some risk. My 11 year old daughter calls them “evil multiplying starfish” and swears that one day she’ll have a tank dedicated to them. 

[RayWhisperer]

13 minutes ago, patback said:

I've had them in every tank I've ever owned  besides the mantis tank.  I have personally never had an issue with any.

My non-taxonomical based opinion on them is that coral are already on the way out, form a small layer of algae and people assume that the stars were eating the coral.  

That makes too much sense. It's so much easier to toss out beneficial animals because they look creepy, or someone told them they are bad. 

 

I've given up on trying to convince people that certain animals are beneficial. I just give them my opinions, or experiences, and call it a day.

[banasophia]

1 minute ago, RayWhisperer said:

That makes too much sense. It's so much easier to toss out beneficial animals because they look creepy, or someone told them they are bad. 

 

I've given up on trying to convince people that certain animals are beneficial. I just give them my opinions, or experiences, and call it a day.

Yeah well bristleworms and arrow crabs... both creepy... wont be adding arrow crabs, and I would remove the bristles if I could. Just cuz they are beneficial doesn’t mean I want to look at them in my tank. 😳😜

[RayWhisperer]

Get an arrow crab. They eat them. Then you could trade dozens of beneficial creepy animals for one useless creepy animal.

[Sancho]

I have quite the collection of them....never seen them on my corals......

[RayWhisperer]

5 minutes ago, Sancho said:

I have quite the collection of them....never seen them on my corals......

Scape looks like shit, IMO. that’s probably why they don’t touch your corals.

[Sancho]

I think I found the mother 🤣 this ones huge 

[Tamberav]

Most are beneficial...when I had an acro decline the stars were on it. They were NOT harming the coral like so many would have pointed fingers at. They were a help in it's recovery as they were actually eating microalgae that was quickly trying to form on the now bare skeleton and bacteria and whatever else. 

 

The acro survived and still has that spot of bare skeleton that the stars continue to keep clean.

 

They are cute too 🙂