Why is my starfish smoking?

[dirty59rt]

Last night i looked in my tank and my thorny star was bowed up on a rock. It seemed kinda weird so i took a closer look and he was smoking... kinda. Like he was realsing something from his back. What's it doing?

[rshimek]

Hi,

It was spawning....

If it looked like "smoke" it was a male, if you could see small dots in the cloud it was a female.

[dirty59rt]

sweet... i think it was a male. I don't guess that'll affect the tank right? I've never seen that before. I was excited, my girlfriend thought i was dumb...

[rshimek]

Hi,

No, this won't affect the system negatively at all.

[dirty59rt]

So what would happen if there was a female starfish of the same species in the tank?