Jump to content
Pod Your Reef

What is this star, and is it bad? -looks bad...


hjk1173

Recommended Posts

HEy everyone, i've got my 20L nano going and about 3 days ago i was at the LFS and got a chunk of live rock that had a couple other things on it...but to the point, Today i look in there, and from the crack i see a tentacle. At first i thought it was a bristle work, but i looked more and saw more spikes, and thought it was a HUGE bristle worm, after a couple seconds i realized it is a brittle star of some sort. I tried taking pics but its to far in the crack to work. the ends of its arms look black and white like a bee, (but white, not yellow) and the closer to its body the bigger the spikes get. it looks pretty scary. my real question is what kind is it, and is it bad.? any help would be a help! thanks

 

CHRIS

Link to comment

Probably just a small brittle star from what I can of the tips of the tentacles. It would be better to see more of it. I don't have any references here at work, but there is a common black ophiuroid that looks mean but seems pretty harlmess tha has very long "bristles" on it's arms. Chances are this guy is a scavenger/detritivore that will do better if you give it small pieces of fleshy food from time to time.

Link to comment

There are atlantic and pacific brittle stars.. if my memory services me, atlantic brittle stars are brown in color, where pacific are white/pink

 

This looks like an atlantic brittle star to me.. pefectly fine.. my prob with it was that I had a second spike in nitrates after my cycle which killed the poor guy, and then was torn to pieces by my hermits... live and learn...

Link to comment

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recommended Discussions

×
×
  • Create New...