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3 questions

Joined
Dec 14, 2007
Messages
655
1) I saw this starfish, snapped this picture just thinking it was a mutant, came back an hour later and there wer two 3 legged stars. I thought echinoderms were sexual reproducers. Most of the stars in the tank have either 3 or 6 legs, or three legs with three growing. A few have 5 legs though. I have also found groups of tiny 5 legged stars that appear to be the same species, so whats up?

2) What the heck is this red stuff and what should I do?

3) I'm planning on getting either a juvenile cowfish or a valentini puffer, I've read great stuff about both, but I'm bad at making decisions, which one?
 

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one thing to warn you about the puffer and cows... they are toxic. if they get stressed or die(stuck to power heads being the worst case scenario) they will nuke out your tank.
 
Id say I prolly have Asterina then, and prolly more than one species, which would explain the fact that some have five legs and produce smaller starfish young, and others seem to reproduce sexually.

Monty, they definetly are stars... tube like feet, rough skin, underneath structure is like a stars...

What about the red stuff in the sand?
 
I moved some starfish-biology parts over here:

non-ceph: starfish reproduction

since the topics seemed to be diverging.

(and I accidentally duplicated some posts and then deleted the wrong ones, sorry for any confusing post-shrapnel)
 
Yup, cyano. You can:

Do what Joe said and add a polyfilter.
Feed less.
Increase flow to the area affected.
Check your pH.

But, it's pretty common in new tanks and should go away in a few weeks, but it might occasionally return in low-flow spots.
 
If I get a juvenile cowfish (1/2 inch), I will sell it when it gets to about 5 inches, but I was thinking more along the lines of outright personality, I know that most salt water fish have personality, but I was thinking more along the lines of personality detectable to humans, such as an "octo spitting crab guts at my mom whenever she walks by" or a "porcupine puffer spitting water at you whenever you take out a ping pong ball that floats in the water that it likes to play with" or an "octo pulling the inside cleaning magnet off so that it gets your attention" that sort of stuff. But if they are both similar Ill prolly go with the valentini based on what AM said.
 

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