Milestone 08/25/2006 - New species added: Family Asterinidae sea stars

[BrianPlankis]

Hello all,

Project DIBS continues to collect breeding invertebrates. We have just added the Family Asterinidae sea stars in this thread:

http://www.projectdibs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=91

They are small, but beneficial grazers. There are some reports of them attacking corals, but I have not seen these do any damage in my tank. As more people report on these stars, hopefully we can try to find some differences between the ones that attack coral to the ones that do not.

Brian

[Jen]

I have a large thriving population of astrina stars in my tank. They do not appear to harm my corals. I have read though that they eat corraline algea. Have you seen this in your tanks?

Jen

[BrianPlankis]

I have never seen mine eat coralline algae, but most of mine are currently in my sump or QT tank. I wouldn't mind if they ate coralline though, I have TONS of it in my main tank. If I see them doing it I'll try to get it on video :)

Brian