Live rock hitcher

[jay0705]

Ok folks. I have what i believe to be a star fish. All i see is 4 arms coming from diff areas of the rock. Light grey base with black stripes. Appears to be bristle like. Light sensitive bc when i shine my flash light at it, it retracts its arms. Thoughts?

 

[TanksByTheBanks]

Harlequin shrimp would clean it up if it's a starfish but they starve after that let eat all the starfish they're great looking animals you might want to help them out if indeed they are starfish. (I would suggest to cycle with other people in the hobby if you are going to get the harlequin.

 

[2quills]

Sounds like your garden variety, rock dwelling brittle stars to me. They're harmless and help keep the rocks clean of detritus. Nothing I would worry about and are about as common as the average bristle worm.

.02

 

[jay0705]

How big do they get quills? This is a first for me. Ive had astria stars, mantis shrimp, crab. Never a brittle star tho. I've almost bought them tho lol

 

[2quills]

If they're anything like the ones I had in my old 55g tank they don't get very big at all. I didn't do anything special to keep them they feed off of organics that build up in the rocks or any food particles they can find.

At one point I had dozens of them in there. In the even during feeding time hundreds of little legs would be poking out of the rocks everywhere. Was creepy but cool lol.

The bigger species are mostly sand dwellers.

 

[jay0705]

Ah gotcha

 

[lmforbis]

Mine is about a foot across.

 

[jay0705]

That would be nice lol. I am betting its a smaller one tho

 

[2quills]

What color, Imforbis?

I had a serpent star that was almost that at one point.

 

[lmforbis]

Kind of grayish/green but has a splotchy pattern. It is also bristly. I've had it for years. It was in time out in my sump until I set up the new tank because I watched it grab my very small naso tang as it swam by.

 

[jay0705]

Hmm i tried baiting this one out with half a clam , but no go

 

[2quills]

I would say the time out is well deserved lol. Maybe I just didn't keep mine long enough to get that size. The biggest i saw before the tank came down was maybe the size of the palm of my hand.

 

[iidylii]

description sounds kind of like my serpeant star...he's about 3" across...my brittle star on the other hand last I checked which was about 6 months ago is eh 14-16" across lol hes kind of a very dull red