Baby starfish everywhere! Good? Bad?

S

simontan

There was a recent boom of baby starfish in my tank, and I was wondering if there's any reason for concern or if they will mostly die off or get eaten eventurally. I have 2 or 3 large brittle stars now and 1 very large green brittle star. There are probably 2 or 3 dozen babies all over the place. They started showing up about 2 mos. ago and are about 3/8" now. I assume they're babies of the brittles, but they don't look anything like them right now. They are white with either 5 or 6 fat arms. I'll post some pics later - I wish I'd taken some earlier when one was hitching a ride on a hermit crab, and it looked like the crab had a Cowboys helmet on :lol: .
 
Here's a pic of couple of them clinging to the overflow. Don't know how to take good close-ups with my camera otherwise I could get the underside of some stuck on the glass. Also, I guess I was mistaken when I thought some had 5 arms. Looks like they all have 7 arms.
 
yea, looks like what stallen said, definately not bristle, make sure they are solid white, the brown or tan colored or tinted ones can be bad...
 
Looks like asterinas.. They're "supposed" to be good for the tank and always missing an arm since thats how they reproduce. I had one in my nano way back when but its since gone AWOL. I suppose maybe a lot may be a sign of something but theres not much info on them.
 
Those starfish your seeing are harmless, I have seen them in countless reef tanks, and have never seen any kind of negitive effects from the starfish living in there.
I have also noticed that when the algae starts to build up on the glass the starfish tend to graze on it until you clean the glass.
Nothing to be alarmed of.

Good Luck
Charlie
 
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