Brittle stars

cjason3041

cjason3041

Member
i was just reading the post in which some mean spirited people were bashing ophiura...which raised a question about my own star, but i did not wan to post there...
so...ophiura please respond...i value your experience
ok..i have a brittle star and have had him for about 3 years...man is he huge...so i was wondering how long they live????
thanks
jason
 
cjason3041

cjason3041

Member
eternal??? not trying to be a jackhole but come on...nothing is eternal...otherwise the ocean would be full of 400 foot starfish....
 
frankthetank

frankthetank

Active Member
Originally Posted by cjason3041
eternal??? not trying to be a jackhole but come on...nothing is eternal...otherwise the ocean would be full of 400 foot starfish....

I have to agree. I know of nothing on earth that is eternal.
 
aztec reef

aztec reef

Active Member
Originally Posted by cjason3041
eternal??? not trying to be a jackhole but come on...nothing is eternal...otherwise the ocean would be full of 400 foot starfish....
fish don't die ! they just get older. unless something kills them . why do you think sarks have lived this long .in the ocean the huge eat the small & the small eat the tiny and so on..
don't get me started..
 
blessedyo

blessedyo

Member
Originally Posted by cjason3041
i was just reading the post in which some mean spirited people were bashing ophiura...which raised a question about my own star, but i did not wan to post there...
so...ophiura please respond...i value your experience
ok..i have a brittle star and have had him for about 3 years...man is he huge...so i was wondering how long they live????
thanks
jason
Hmmm, this is a good question. :thinking: I wondered the same thing too. :notsure:
This quote is what I have found so far.
"As with all animals, echinoderms have a finite lifespan. Unlike most animals, however, echinoderms do not have a finite life expectancy and have no old age or senescence. If provided with a good environment and plenty of food, they may live a very long time, indeed. It is difficult to get age estimates from soft-bodied animals such as sea cucumbers, but with diligence and long-term research projects, some reliable estimates of the life spans of temperate sea urchins and sea stars are beginning to be made. Age estimates of some red sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus franciscanus) from the Pacific Coast of North America, based on marking and determination of actual growth over time, indicate the average animal may expect to live more than 100 years, and life spans in excess of 200 years are a distinct possibility (Ebert and Southon 2003). Long life spans are also known or hypothesized for many sea stars (Carlson and Pfister 1999). There is no reason at all to suggest that these age estimates are in any way unusual for echinoderms, in general. This means that tropical animals likely live as long as these temperate animals."
Obtained from web site: {Edit Link :( - google "Shimek echinoderms aquaria" ...the article and above is written by Dr. Ron Shimek}
I know that it does not give the exact expectancy, but it does say that it is hard to determine, but they do live for a long, long time. My guy even survived some kind of flesh eating parasite, and only shows a VERY small scar. (heck, this parasite ate almost his entire body & part of one leg), but he didn't succumb to it.
Hope this helps.
:thinking:
 
aztec reef

aztec reef

Active Member
Originally Posted by blessedyo
Hmmm, this is a good question. :thinking: I wondered the same thing too. :notsure:
This quote is what I have found so far.

"As with all animals, echinoderms have a finite lifespan. Unlike most animals, however, echinoderms do not have a finite life expectancy and have no old age or senescence. If provided with a good environment and plenty of food, they may live a very long time, indeed. It is difficult to get age estimates from soft-bodied animals such as sea cucumbers, but with diligence and long-term research projects, some reliable estimates of the life spans of temperate sea urchins and sea stars are beginning to be made. Age estimates of some red sea urchins (Strongylocentrotus franciscanus) from the Pacific Coast of North America, based on marking and determination of actual growth over time, indicate the average animal may expect to live more than 100 years, and life spans in excess of 200 years are a distinct possibility (Ebert and Southon 2003). Long life spans are also known or hypothesized for many sea stars (Carlson and Pfister 1999). There is no reason at all to suggest that these age estimates are in any way unusual for echinoderms, in general. This means that tropical animals likely live as long as these temperate animals."
:thinking:

this is exactly my point!!
 
larryndana

larryndana

Active Member
Originally Posted by cjason3041
i was just reading the post in which some mean spirited people were bashing ophiura...which raised a question about my own star, but i did not wan to post there...
so...ophiura please respond...i value your experience
ok..i have a brittle star and have had him for about 3 years...man is he huge...so i was wondering how long they live????
thanks
jason
lets just say a long time,
.
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
Originally Posted by Mombostic
Not to be off point, but why would someone be bashing ophiura?
because they are shallow, short minded, and looking to desparage some one to make themselves feel better. they were doing the "I'm smarter than you so you are dumb" schtick. it just made them look like AXXXXles. they are smart but have no common sense, or common decency at all.
 
larryndana

larryndana

Active Member
Originally Posted by reefkprZ
because they are shallow, short minded, and looking to desparage some one to make themselves feel better. they were doing the "I'm smarter than you so you are dumb" schtick. it just made them look like AXXXXles. they are smart but have no common sense, or common decency at all.
agreed.
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
:)
Thanks everyone. FWIW I have no issues whatsoever with someone disagreeing with me, or anyone else, so long as they do so respectfully and productively.

I think the above covers it (though, cringe, I have to edit the link out due to being sponsored by another board :( ). There is a debate as to whether many echinoderms ever die of "old age" so to speak. And in forms that reproduce asexually, forming clones, do they every die? Part science, part philosophy I suppose.
So there is no reason that the brittlestar, IMO, can't outlive your tank
I think there are reports of people have them 15 years, but it is just hard to overall experience or figure out from wild specimens. I have had some in excess of I guess 6 years now. 2 were in a dismal state (lost most of their arms, spines) and are now beasts!
It is not uncommon for Brittlestars to get large holes in the disk which is commonly either predation or, simply, eating something too large that poked through the other side. In good conditions, and likely due to the assistance of a remarkable assemblage of symbiotic bacteria, they will heal rather quickly.
They do not, however, keep growing. Most species do have a specific, and relatively diagnostic, size.
 
aztec reef

aztec reef

Active Member
until someone proofs that they die due to age. i stickng to my point. yeah of coarse they don't keep growing.but they do keep getting older.in the other hand fish do get bigger as they get older.(until they reached their potential size scientificly speaking)after that they just keep getting older..
 
reefkprz

reefkprz

Active Member
Originally Posted by ophiura
:)
Thanks everyone. FWIW I have no issues whatsoever with someone disagreeing with me, or anyone else, so long as they do so respectfully and productively.

I agree. I have dissagreed with many people on here, many times. I try to do so in a manner that promotes learning and shows where my information is coming from. often I have been wrong, often I have been right, always I have tried to keep it as a debate of facts and when I cant get my point across I agree to disagree. some like the person who shall remain unnamed by me just hunt for a reason to attack anothers info. it was like just the mention of your name Incised this person. I find it a very repusive behaviour. Oph, your great, I love discussing things with you even when we dont agree.
(I gotta admit your usually right)
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
Age is always a difficult thing because we exist on very different time scales than they do. We would not last very long when starving, but seastars can be starving over nearly a year. The same is somewhat true of movement and interactions. I think it was a "Shape of Life" PBS special with echinoderm biologist Dr. John Pearse that did a time lapse feature and showed seastars move and interact a lot...we just don't notice it because it is a different scale.
So for us the concept of living so long is strange. They get "older" on our time scale, and our recognition of the passing of time. But they do not necessarily get "older" in the physiological sense, showing signs of "old age." But then again they can be cut in half and regenerate too...actually they can do all sorts of rather amazing things
 
aztec reef

aztec reef

Active Member
btw, i respect your views(ophiura) cause you seem to know what you're doing. even do i may not agree 100% all the time. i can tell that you got the invertebrates down
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
Originally Posted by reefkprZ
I agree. I have dissagreed with many people on here, many times. I try to do so in a manner that promotes learning and shows where my information is coming from. often I have been wrong, often I have been right, always I have tried to keep it as a debate of facts and when I cant get my point across I agree to disagree. some like the person who shall remain unnamed by me just hunt for a reason to attack anothers info. it was like just the mention of your name Incised this person. I find it a very repusive behaviour. Oph, your great, I love discussing things with you even when we dont agree.
(I gotta admit your usually right)


The thing is, you can study the same animals, the same research, work with the same people, equipment and resources - yet scientists frequently disagree. Though they argue, no one is necessarily "right" and the other "wrong." It may be what they know at the time, or how they explain it. But scientific truth is a very different thing than the "civilian" :lol: truth.
 
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