Small Sea Star ID

[frewl]

I was going to throw away all the paper towels and water from when I got some live rock. (I know its been a week but been busy with work and such)

I decided to look through and see if anything we crawling on the bottom or on the paper towels. I found these little sea stars I think they might be Asterina</em> sea stars but I'm not sure. They are all about 1/4 inch long. I think they may still be alive I bag them up and floating them right now just incase they are reef safe. I'll try to get some pics of them after a while trying to find the digi cam in "the pile."

 

[donnyholland]

do they have 6 legs?

/d

 

[glxtrix]

if they dont look like these:

http://www.melevsreef.com/id/babybrittles.html">http://www.melevsreef.com/id/babybrittles.html</a>

then they are prolly the asterina stars, you can tell cuz they will be fatter looking, like these:

[IMG]http://www.pirx.com/gallery/albums/echinoderms/starfish01.jpg>http://www.pirx.com/gallery/albums/echinoderms/starfish01.jpg</a>

 

[frewl]

Yes I do believe they do. Its like3 of the legs are really stubby looks like there are five but if you looke closely there is a stub inbetween two of the larger stubs. If that makes sence at all. they are still alive right now I had trouble finding them because they crawled onto the rocks and blended in.

 

[frewl]

They look like asterina stars. I think I might throw them in my 24NC they would have plenty to eat in there. I've been fighting some diatoms. I read they are reef safe but if they can't find food they start looking for anythign to eat.

 

[kappaknight]

I have a bunch in my tank... the white ones are reef safe... and no, it's not a race thing.

 

[dakota]

I had the ones with the white/tan base and red or blue markings.

Don't add them to your tank. They are a pain to remove once they start eating your coral polyps. They multiply by dropping legs and regrowing.
One can become seven pretty quickly.