brittle star?

Hey, I just found this little thing in with a coral.  I think it is just a little brittle star, but wanted to make sure it was safe to put in my tank first.

Edited by Davidwillis - November 08 2010 at 12:10am

Thanks... I will dump him in then..

I have probably 100 in my tank. They don't bother anything and are a great addition to the clean up crew. They stay hidden most of the time and my grandkids like to see how many of them they can find. I have one very large brittle star. It must be 8" across. As soon as I feed the tank it starts waving its arms around trying to catch food as it passes by.

wow, that is a lot of brittle stars...

I love my harlequin shrimp

Are the Stars harming anything?
Do they stay hidden during the day?
I have serviced tanks that had millions of small Stars like that. Those Stars were great filter feeders and the tanks did very well, even had clownfish breeding from which we raised the baby clownfish.
I wonder if that many Sea Stars is an indication of a tank that has plenty of food for them? I wonder if changing what is fed and how it's fed would reduce the population?
Could you acclimate the Harlequin in a submerged container for 2-5 days, feeding it the stars so that it not only gets a good taste for them but allows the other shrimp to see that it is no threat? Or is the Cleaner Shrimp also feeding on Stars and sees the Harlequin as competition?


Edited by Mark Peterson - November 09 2010 at 9:52am

Jeff, are they hard to catch?  Ever concider giving any away?

No biggie, I just thought they looked pretty cool.

Jeffs_little_ocean wrote: I do feed my tank on the heavy side just to make sure nothing is ever hungry. Its the asterina star population that at times seems to be at an epic overinfestation,

Asterina Stars are a good thing to have. They help keep the tank clean, They consume the beneficial bacterial film growing on all surfaces and rarely bother anything else, unless there is little bacterial film.

I would bet that the overfeeding is not only creating a large population of Stars, but you can probably identify several other populations that are increasing because of the abundant food. Is there a large cleanup crew of Snails, Hermits and even a Cucumber or two in the tank?

For what its worth, my rule of thumb is to underfeed. I've noticed that fish will keep eating until they almost burst. They are programmed to eat all they can when it is avaiable. In the wild, there are times of feast and times of famine. I have found that hungry fish are healthier fish, because they are picking at live food growing in the tank. About once a week I feed a "Thanksgiving Dinner". This is probably a different concept than most hobbyists, but it works for me. It helps the tank stay on the low side of dissolved nutrients (N & P compounds) with a temporary increase after the heavy feeding. I have found that fish excretions are enough to feed a lot of life in the tank. Of course, what works for me may not work for anyone else. Remember, I'm the weird hobbyist that keeps my non-skimmed tanks in the bright sun for much of the day.