Some say Asterina Starfish are bad and eat coral. Other people say they are harmless and eat algae. I used to be a "harmless" person until recently. I had something mow through some of my coral overnight and the only thing I found in the area were Asterinas. Today I found this. One was on the rocks, the other was hiding under a coral. Monti nudis hide under the Monti they are eating too. I believe the dark one is a coral eater and the light one is the typical "harmless" version. Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G890A using Tapatalk
May very well be! Thing is if coral has an injured or dead spot it's going to immediately stimulate algae to grow on the non living skeleton. It's also possible the asterina are there because of that and not because they did the damage. Who knows. I have some in my tank, both the darker and lighter ones. Never had them cause a problem (yet!) and they don't seem to reproduce very much. Don't have anymore now than I did 6 months or so. Nothing wrong with siphoning them out if you don't know. Lynda Hendrickson has a Harlequin shrimp. She might take them off you hands to feed him.
Yeah I have been tossing around the idea of getting a Harlequin shrimp. I think for the time being, I will just remove them when I see them. John
