In one of my zoa cololnies i can see these little tiny britle looking starfish(black and white in corol). There are atleast a half dozen crawling all over the base of my zoas. My zoas are most still open, but should i be worried about this? What are these creatures and should i use needle nose plyers and pull them out?

Thanks in advance for any advice.

I dont have any picture becuase I'm currently working on an oil rig in the middle of the pacific and the starfish looking creatures maybe too small to get a picture of.

Hey ScubaBosh, welcome to TR.

If your starfish look like this...

http://www.theculturedreef.com/MiniStar.jpg


Then you are OK. These are mini stars and are a good thing.

Dick

i'm not sure on what size that stars is in ur picture. But yes it looks just like that only they have black and white stripes. Good to hear. thanks so much!

I often see just the legs waving around in the LR in my tanks. Occasionally I will see an entire star on the glass or moving from one rock to another. My fuge is absolutely packed with them and so far they have not caused a problem. I have some that are white and some with legs that are light and dark striped. Mine stay pretty small usually. The largest I have found had a body about the size of a pencil eraser. They particularly like my seahorse tank with all the leftover mysis from the ponies, but are in my reef and clown tanks as well.
HTH
Peace
Lynn

phew thanks Lynn that helped a lot. I was very concerned about them

They are great detrivores and very desirable.

... and tasty!

(Oh boy - I'm starting to sound like Veriann!) :wow: