help ID this

[mholt]

found this

tonight think it is some kinda star can anyone tell me what it is.

 

[Reef keeper]

asterina if u have zoas/palys kill em!

 

[bluepit]

+1 asterina

 

[Kbra]

Kill it and or get a harlequin.

Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk

 

[CoralReefDoc]

If you get a harlequin shrimp be prepares to feed it starfish, after it eats that asterina within 15 min of hitting the sandbed

 

[kershak]

look very carefull they multiply very fast and eats zoas kill it

 

[nixer]

you guys do know they all dont eat zoas right?

 

[Reef keeper]

The ones i have in my tank r eatin mine^

 

[Salty D]

I have 100's of them in my nano. The tiny 1/8" white ones dont seem to hurt anything. They will sit on a zoa polyp for a day and move on and the polyp will open up shortly after. But out of the 100's there are a few that turn a tanish brown color and grow to about the size of a dime. They sit on a polyp and the next day, the polyp and mat will be gone. I lost a big colony of zoas to the large asterinas. Once they were gone they started attacking neptheas. I let them do their thing for a week and they cut down 5 trees that were about 6" tall and had a stalk as big around as my thumb. I got up one day and saw that my palau green tree had a big star on it's base and had chewed half way through it. Thats when I drew the line. I've pulled out about 30 of the large ones and around 200 of the tiny ones in the last few weeks. Dont let them get to plague proportions like I did.
Here is a pic of the one I pulled off the green tree to show how big they can get. Believe it or not this isn't the largest one I've removed from my tank.

 

[Reef keeper]

Exactly or their on a zoas and i pull them off and the zia has a hole in it!

 

[Salty D]

Here is a crappy pic of one of the larger ones cutting a tree off the glass.

 

[Bongo Shrimp]

Just an astrea star. Not cutting the kenya tree but likely eating some algae. They are usually ok as long as their population stays low and they don't bug corals.

 

[jiffy]

1+ get a harlequin shrimp!

 

[Salty D]

About an hour after taking that pic, the tree was on the sand just like the one behind it. There was about 1/2" long stub left attached to the glass. 3 other trees were removed by these guys within a few days. The star next to the dime was pulled off my green tree. I took a pic of the damage where you can see the trench the star was cutting into the base. I want a harley shrimp but having no skimmer/sump would be hard to keep water params in check when I'm throwing chocolate chip legs in there to rot. Here's the pic of the green tree right after I pulled the star of it.

 

[jiffy]

well I have one, collect them all and send them to me! =]