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New 90 Gallon Reef setup. - Going to need alot of advice.

In addition to the newly found sponge we are now seeing a couple of tiny white starfish on my back wall and overflow... good or bad? Is this a sign my tank is doing okay water wise? Thx
 

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Sounds like you have Asterina starfish. There is a love/hate feeling about Asterina. Some folks don't have a problem with them....others want them out. Note that a very small percentage are known to eat certain corals. The general belief is that white is safe....colored Asterina could be coral eaters. Again, this is an extremely small percentage of a certain variety of Asterina that consume corals. Otherwise they eat algae and are a benefit to the tank. FYI, I've had Asterina for over eight years without issue
 

redfishbluefish

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
I would not use the presence of Asterina as a indication of water quality. It certainly is a good sign that they are alive, but you really can't take the place of doing the proper testing for water quality using your test kits.
 
Lol... no I am still at the point of testing every 3 weeks...with w/c 20% weekly... just found it weird that this sponge and now this starfish started popping up...thought something might be off that I wasn't testing for.... but thanks...
 
Ok...you guys have given me good news so what about these little white things...lol
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Knock on wood (my head), so far so good... as a side note... changed the flow to very slow on my refuge and my chaeto exploded... in about two weeks I got a small soccer ball sized clump that I just threw away... my question is I put a bunch of copipods and amphipods in there... I think you can see them in the video... am I wasting a bunch of them when I throw out the chaeto?
 
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