Curing live rock, starfish hitchiker? What is it?

[gweston]

Slowly working on a 125gal long build.. just found a tank this week. Lots of DIY to do yet, but I'll get there by early summer hopefully.

I have a bunch of live rock in a Brute in the basement. It effectively came cycled. Maybe only a week or two and the parameters are great.

The rock has been curing for ~3weeks for me, and before that was in someone's kitchen in a bin with a power head for who knows how long. I keep a light over it about 5-6 hours a day. I see a few sponges and who knows what else growing. Nuicance algae seems in check thanks to some tiny hermits that tagged along.

In any case, I saw this crawling on the rock this morning. Some sort of Star.

Any idea what this is?

Apologies for the poor quality. This thing is tiny. Smaller than a dime. It is whitish with dots/blotches. Tough to make out the color. I think some black/brown/red in there possibly?

 

[gweston]

Mmm maybe I answered my own question... some type of Asterina?

I 'think' it is similar to this one..

http://tinyurl.com/ybm6zkr

Now the question is if it is a 'bad' or 'good' star for corals. I don't have any yet.. but rather not have them multiply now.

 

[beckisguy73]

I had them also but had about a hundred of them all over my tank and glass... They were not bad for me and was told they were ok... I only have a few larger ones left now (maybe about 5)..

 

[dcforester1]

I was told not to worry about them. The other night I took 18 out of my tank. Some people dont mind them I guess, I would get rid of it.

 

[Haypoo]

Yea they are good cleaners. Some people get harlequins to wipe em out but they might become a snack themselves in some cases.

 

[bill120mph]

They will eat coraline algae , and multiply quite quickly especially ounce their numbers grow, I keep a harlequin in my 55 and feed him the ones from my 180. If I didnt have a large serpent living in my 180 I would move him.

 

[gweston]

I'll keep my eyes peeled. I have only seen that one. This is just a liverock bucket, so no corals for it to attack... but I would like the coraline to grow. I may need to be on a mission to remove them if they cause problems.