Just fliped my lights on and I found...

paulcoates

paulcoates

Member
1)Looks like I have a lot of tiny little baby stars that from tip to tip are about the size of a dime - Will these get bigger?
2)A baby sand sifting star....I had two of these in here earlier and they both died about 2 months ago. It is about the size of a button on your shirt
3)Not sure what these other things are, however some very tiny white wom like looking creatures
4)Not sure what these are either, but little wormlike looking creatures that have antennas and there bodies around their backs seem to curl up
Can anyone help me with any of these and tell me what they could be...
 
murph145

murph145

Active Member
just a bunch of common hitchickers lol...
its hard to tell what they are without pics....
but i have tons of little white brittle stars in my tank that dont get too big at all.... lots of different hitchiker crabs snails dusters sponges abalone nudibranchs pods, worms man there is so much out there its hard to tell
 
njfish77

njfish77

Member
the tiny worm things that tend to curl up are copepods:good
the baby brittle stars are also good and im not sure if they get bigger but if they do it will prob take a long time
the sand sifting star i would bring to a fish store because i dont like them in reefs because they eat some of the good stuff in a sand bed.and if these arent sandsifting stars sand sifting stars they could be astrea stars
 
paulcoates

paulcoates

Member
the only reason i think it is a sand sifter is that i had two of them that died in the tank within the last few months.
The bugs that curl up seem to just move along the rock and only at night.... They are not there this morning
 
paulcoates

paulcoates

Member
the bugs can best be described as a tiny thin piece of rice with antennas at his head. They are pretty damn quick moving too
 
bigarn

bigarn

Active Member
Originally Posted by paulcoates
the bugs can best be described as a tiny thin piece of rice with antennas at his head. They are pretty damn quick moving too
They're pods.
 
promisetbg

promisetbg

Active Member
They are amphipods not copepods a type of crustacean.Copepods are much smaller.The tiny stars are probably a type of asterina..do they have odd numbers of legs?
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
It sounds like you have the common hitch hiker brittlestar Amphipholis, which will not get larger than a nickel or so. The seastar is Asterina. Your sandsifters, I guarantee you, did not reproduce.
 
ophiura

ophiura

Active Member
The brittlestars are definitely good.
The Asterina stars, are, IMO, 98% harmless. And LOADS of people have them. For those that do cause issues, I would say the number one thing is eating coralline. A few other reports are of eating SPS corals, or soft corals.
My tank is LOADED with them and I have never had issues with them on soft or LPS corals. They are generally on rocks and glass, at night, and are eating surface films. Their population can be correlated with increased nutrient levels in tanks.
While any animal is worth keeping an eye on, Asterina stars are "hyped" by a certain website, and I think it has gotten people overly sensitive. YES some are problematic, but then so are many other creatures in our tanks in some cases. I wouldn't worry about it unless you see problems. Many, many many people have them (IMO, well in the majority) without having any problems whatsoever

There is a bit more, with pics, in the "hitch hiker ID" thread posted in the new hobbyists section.
 
mudplayerx

mudplayerx

Active Member
Originally Posted by njfish77
the tiny worm things that tend to curl up are copepods:good
the baby brittle stars are also good and im not sure if they get bigger but if they do it will prob take a long time
the sand sifting star i would bring to a fish store because i dont like them in reefs because they eat some of the good stuff in a sand bed.and if these arent sandsifting stars sand sifting stars they could be astrea stars
copepods are the tiny white specks on your glass.
 
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