What is This

[Modjit]

Please can you help me I recently bought my wife a new mmarine tank and after a while a bunch of Live Rock well I have noticed a load of feather duster worms on them but also some other things I have rencently found out that she has a load of fire worms some very small but one big one also something has now crept out of the rock and i don't know what it is please help me i,m enclosing a picture for identification the onlyway i can describe it is like a middle of a star fish but it has six legs

 

[Kasakato]

Wrong Forum~Looks SW too me

 

[OrionGirl]

A very common type of starfish. They typcially don't get much larger than a dime in size, and always have weird number of arms--they reproduce readily by breaking off a chunk of arm, which then grows more arms and continues the cycle. Harmless little algae eaters, for the most part--there are some species that will target corals, but they are pretty rare.

 

[corriewf]

They are astrina stars and I would remove them as the ones that eat coral and coralline look exactly like the ones that dont.

 

[OrionGirl]

I thought resorting to corals and such was a matter of food availability? I've never had a problem with them in my tank--they spend most of the time on the glass, eating algae.

 

[skippy2]

They are astrina stars and I would remove them as the ones that eat coral and coralline look exactly like the ones that dont.

It is my understanding that the ones that eat corals have a brown center. Very rare in the home aquarium.