Did ever orange brittle starfish

jlwawa

New Member
Couple days ago I found the orange brittle starfish, I never see any it in store or online as like this pix... Please tell me, Is it bad or good ? It come hitcher in my reef :notsure:
 

joojoo

Member
it's really pretty....
i'd say leave him in there unless you witness him hurting something
i did a google search and couldnt find anything
 
R

rjattack19

Guest
maybe a new discovery...u could name it after ur self...or a really cool/bored kid sitting at his comp named ronnie...lol jk, i would keep it, its really cool looking. can u try to get a few more pics of it
 

ophiura

Active Member
Do you have Florida Live rock?
The picture is tough for an actual ID. I have an idea, but if you could get another picture that would help. A picture of the arm, or central disk....how many arms does it have??
Most will be fine for tanks....but you will not likely find all that much accurate information about identification of brittlestars online as there are only about a half dozen of us
who actually still work on brittlestar taxonomy around the world. It is an extremely complex group, and difficult to identify many species without microscopic examination...and did I mention there are over 2200 species at least?
For random information on brittlestars there is my website (shameless plug):
The Ophiuroidea
Haven't updated it in AGES. I mean, a looong time. :scared: But much of the information is still informative
 

ophiura

Active Member
Alternatively, I will add that I would most certainly take the specimen for scientific observation in my own tank :thinking:
 

celacanthr

Active Member
ophiura I have been meaning to tell you that you may want to do some deleting of messages in your message boards.
 

ophiura

Active Member
Ah, thank you...
Yes, you can see that there were some of our friends that were issues on this board in the past. I wonder WHY on earth they were not welcome here????
Just don't know!

If you give people a long enough rope, sure enough, they will hang themselves!!!
 

celacanthr

Active Member
your welcome! I knew you'd want to know.

LOL, I can DEFINANTLY see why they aren't welcome here!
Back on topic- that is a very cool brittle! I wish someone would sell em!
-CELA
P.S. I have a starfish that I want to know about, and was wondering if you could ID it, but the pic is on a commercial site, and I don't know what their rules are on using their pics, so i was wondering if I could e-mail you the pic for ID? Is it the same att.net account?
 

ophiura

Active Member
Yes, that email will work. I'll try my best but am often limited by pictures because they don't show enough detail. Brittlestars are beasts to identify, even with a specimen in front of you
 

ophiura

Active Member
I apologize for not answering yet...I am super busy at work, but I have my reference here but need a bit more research. Both are probably in the genus Echinaster.
 

celacanthr

Active Member
I have been doing some researching of "Echinaster", and most places I look say they are "relatively easy", but that doesn't really mean much. In your article on seastars in the archive you include one species of Echinaster (Echinaster echinophorus) with the Linkia and Fromia, which makes me think I need a huge tank, and TONS of LR (neither of which I have, or want). Is this the case?
Thanks Ophiura

-CELA
 

ophiura

Active Member
One of the animals that they mention, they say they feed meat too. I would suspect that this one may be easier to keep, though I have limited experience. It would also potentially mean that it should not be considered reef safe.
The "thorny" one might be similar to Echinaster (Othilia) echinophorus....which is considered reef safe.
Unfortunately I haven't had more time to research this
 

celacanthr

Active Member
oh, thats ok!
neither of these would be going into a reef tank. They would both be going to my mantis tank. I have asked around, and it seems that the mantis won't bother the starfish. I just worry that the starfish may eat the mantis! :scared: (similair to that pic on your site with the brittle that ate the mantis)
Thanks bunches!
-Cela
EDIT:I was looking through your tabloid section of your site to find the pic of the ophuiroid that ate the dead mantis, and saw that Amphipholis squamata luminesce. If I am not mistaken, isn't this one of the common hitchhiker brittles? If it is, then how come we do not see a dazzling light show at night in our tanks? Is it only certain populations that exhibit this ability, such as the populations from the English Channel, and the Meditteranean that Samuel Dupont studied?
 

ophiura

Active Member
It would need to be a large tank, certainly, at least for the "spikey" one. The other, if it can be spot fed, would potentially be OK in a smaller system but not too small.
Usually the Amphipholis needs to be attacked to see this. Every now and then you will see a post about this sort of thing in a brittlestar or other animal, but it wouldn't be something that you can easily promote.
 

celacanthr

Active Member
Originally Posted by ophiura
Usually the Amphipholis needs to be attacked to see this. Every now and then you will see a post about this sort of thing in a brittlestar or other animal, but it wouldn't be something that you can easily promote.
gotcha!

Thanks so much Ophiura!
 
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