Where can I go to identify my brittle stars?

[Tim Reed]

I just got a piece of live rock and it has about 5 small white brittle stars (I think) with just their legs poking out of the holes. I will sneak up on them tonight and see if they are out. I read that brittle stars will eat the corals but surpent stars will not so I would like to identify them before things come up missing.

 

[MedicineMan1]

Double check your information on brittle stars eating corals. Indo-Pacific Sea Farms sells mini-brittle stars as detritus eaters and sand stirrers. Never, ever have I heard of them harming corals!

 

[ophiuroid]

I have never heard of the brittlestars that hitch-hike in live rock eating corals. They are basically filter feeders, which is why they stick their arms out. Some people have said that the green brittlestar (which is usually a critter that people purchase- it doesn't typically hitch-hike) has eaten their Xenia, other polyps, shrimp and fish. But whether the brittlestar was actually eating the polyps, or simply on the polyps, is not clear (keeping in mind that many polyps will close just by being touched by something). My green brittle happens to like the crevice underneath the rock my Anthelia is on, so I have seen it very close by, but it has never bothered it. Regardless, brittlestars, if well fed (spot feed large one's that are not in rocks), should not bother your other reef animals. If left to scavenge, the might very well scavenge for sleeping fish (a nice, filling meal). The little one's in the rocks are actually considered quite favorable, as are those in the DSB.

There is no biological significance to the differentiation of 'brittle' and 'serpent' stars (to warrant the idea that brittles are bad but serpents are OK). It is only in the aquarium trade that this distinction is made. So don't worry. I have only heard people having trouble with *green* brittles (which, again, if well fed, should stay out of trouble). Many different species within the same genus will have different lengths of arm spines. In the serpent stars, the arm spines are just a bit smaller...so we can't see them as well without a magnification.

I don't think you have anything to worry about! Just enjoy them!

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Brittlestars!! http://home.att.net/~ophiuroid
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[ June 26, 2001: Message edited by: ophiuroid ]

 

[fishtalk]

Tim, they are worms.