Leave Them Be or Killing Spree: How would you respond to seeing Asterina Starfish in your tank?

[exnisstech]

Anyone else scratch the glass when one was between the algae scraper and the glass

 

[reeftivo]

i never noticed asterina in my system until after i bought some additional live rock from Gulf LR a while back. The pieces were super nice but a couple months later i started seeing a few tiny asterinas on the glass once in a while. I would pluck them periodically but never thought much of it. Fast forward to today, my zoas are almost gone and my Two torches are in distress. The suckers are everywhere now but mainly on my rocks. I can easily pluck glass wanderers, but the rock is a different story. i dont know if it may be just coincidence i started noticing them after the Gulf rock was added but maybe they were in there all along and were introduced with a frag i neglected to dip. I found a pair of Harlequins (one may have sufficed) from AquaSD at a good price and will introduce them on Wednesday. Now I have to make sure my LFS can keep a stock of CC stars so i can feed them after the massacre is over LOL. fingers crossed!!

 

[Crabs McJones]

Leave them be. If they start getting overwhelming remove what you can. Long story short you'll never get them all

 

[exnisstech]

I changed my answer from other to serve an eviction notice after finding one of them on my favorite acro and seeing all the flesh removed when I plucked the star off.

Official eviction notice.

 

[Jasonak]

I like them allows me to not feed chocolates to my Harlequin.

 

[stewy14]

I bought them
and I love them!

 

[Paul B]

I collected these on my front glass in one sitting. After I gave them a good talking to, I threw them back in the tank


I also love these guys and they get along fine with the asternia stars

 

[Singspot]

I leave them be. In the 25 years that I have had reef tanks they have never been a problem.

I feed heavy coz I like fat fishes! The Astrinas were fine until now but then exploded and my Zoas started to disappear ... I bought 2 Harlequin Shrimp ... and catch and throw the astrina by hand in 100s too .... I would have loved to keep them for their cleaning ... but ...

 

[Singspot]

Has anyone had any problems with these micro brittle stars?

I have not seen any issues with them ... but I wonder if anyone personally has experience (not just an opinion)?

 

[Munjy]

I have the same situation as RUKelly. Harlequin erradicated the asterinas and now I am regularly buying chocolate chip stars for harlequin to eat. They are the coolest shrimp but picky eaters.

 

[EricR]

Has anyone had any problems with these micro brittle stars?

I have not seen any issues with them ... but I wonder if anyone personally has experience (not just an opinion)?

My ONLY complaint with micro brittle stars is that they sometimes get into my ATO float and jam it, so I kind of have to keep an eye out for that.