i am in starfish hell !!!

[Nadzchris]

hello, i am having a very weird problem, i have an infestation of small starfish. they are white and black in color, and get no bigger than 1/8th of an inch. i try to pick them out but it seems that all i am doing is wasting my time, they come back so fast. is their anythimng i can get to eat or kill these little bastards. if you have any info on this please help me.
thanx, chris

[jdyer88]

are they the squatty kind with short fat arms or the kind with really skinny long arms?

[Sk8r]

No need to worry. such blooms come and they go. Don't get a predator for them, or you'll have to feed the predator when they go.

[saltwater freak]

No need to worry. such blooms come and they go. Don't get a predator for them, or you'll have to feed the predator when they go.

+1 if they are not going after coral they are beneficial algae grazers

I have seen them on my zoos even and the zoo opens up after so i think they are just eating algae off of the zoos.

I have had many different starfish as hitchhikers but they have never done any harm and will thin out their population when their food is depleted.

[Anthrax15]

Most likely Brittle Starfish. Tiny ones like that will cause no harm at all except to uneaten fish food/waste :) They are good and beneficial. Dont harm them. The only ones that you need to worry about that are that small are the Zoanthid eating starfish.

[coralfish]

Not brittles; Astera is what you're dealing with

[sslak]

What are they harming?

Why does everyone want to kill everything they find in the tank that they didn't buy...

[Nadzchris]

squatty short and fat. mainly white in color.

[fishysteve]

Asterina starfish. They're fine.

[Palting]

Yup, they're asterina starfish. I've got hundreds, if not close to a thousand of them. They cover my glass at night when the lights are out. My black substrate looks polkadot, too. LOL!! They disappear soon after the lights come on, and come back again when the lights go out.

There seems to be a discordance of opinion on whether they are beneficial or harmful. I can tell you that IME, they do not bother anything. I leave them alone.

[acoff87]

well if there astrea's i saw a thread a while back that linki star's eat them. but i agree they are harmless, and can be beneficial.

[rhdoug]

ditto on the no worries with these guys. They are eating something that is in excess in the tank, their population will come and go.

[cody6766]

Just watch your zoas. There are some types that will eat them, but they seem to be fairly uncommon. I have never had trouble with mine, only benefit, but have read of a couple others getting the bad ones. Micro brittle stars are good too.

[SDguy]

No need to worry. such blooms come and they go. Don't get a predator for them, or you'll have to feed the predator when they go.

Locally, we rotate harlequin shrimp from tank to tank, as needed.

[jbell370]

I know what you are going through, I started out with only a few and thought that it was cool, but I have never really killed or removed anything that I have found in my tank, guess it adds to the eco-system. I now have over a thousand for sure, I can see them during the day on my LR and then at night are all over the glass, but so far they are not bothering anything, so I leave them alone. I have to date found two larger ones, the first I put in my fuge and yesterday I found another larger one that also went in my fuge. I would say the larger ones are maybe a dime size.

[blades326]

i have recently had them explode in my tank and they have been going after my SPS now and have killed 2 SPS. I have bought a harlequin and it seems to be slowly taking care of them.