baby starfish????

Question
i have a 14 gal biocube that i've had setup for a year and a half. i  have 1 tomato clown, 1 damsel, 1 peppermint shrimp, 5 turbo snails, and 2 sand sifters(no one mentioned my tank was too small for these). i have live sand(although it's probably not now) and about 5-6 lbs of live rock. so, i'm checking out my critters tonight and noticed a bunch of teensy white things that resemble starfish and i'm curious what they are. they're so small they look like fuzz if you're not too close and they're all on the glass. can you help? thanx

Answer
Hi Alyssa. It sounds like you may have some hydroids growing in your tank. These can be very hard to get rid of and can have a very potent sting to them that can even irritate your skin if you were to brush up against them. Check out this website. It may be what you are seeing in your tank.
http://www.chucksaddiction.com/hitchodds.html
Go to the hydroids section down the page a bit and look at the first picture under that headline. these are very common. Scientifically they are known as  hydromedusae (Staurocladia oahuensis) they are very closely related to jellyfish. Nothing to worry about and they usually start to disappear over time with manual removal.