need id on serpent/brittle star

[blayz77]

i bought a mushroom corral a couple days ago and i noticed there are little white skinny arms poking out of the rock the mushrooms are on.
so far there are 4 spots that i see these white arms with black bands. real skinny with a lot of spikes or spines. i beleive them to be brittle or serpent starfish.
this picture i have attached is the closest thing i can find as to what it could be. the ones in my rock are very small, and impossable for me to get a good picture. i imagins this is what they will look like when they get bigger.
if someone knows what they are, are they safe to keep?

 

[flower]

I have them too. I don't know if they will get very big, but they are good guys. Too tiny to tell if they are serpent or brittle stars.

 

[blayz77]

ok cool, if they are good guys then ill keep em.

 

[sldrdvm]

I have the same thing on a mushroom rock I bought over a month ago. They still haven't moved out of the rock.

 

[ophiura]

You likely have a common hitch hiker and NOT the brittlestar you posted (which is in dire shape, by the way).
You have an Ophiactis or Ophiocomella sp which is as large as it will get. Highly desirable micro brittlestars that reproduce well in our tanks, very common, nothing to worry about and require no special care.

 

[blayz77]

ahh ok thx for the replies, yeah the one in the picture was in bad shape but it was the closest thing i could find that resembled what i had in the rocks.
is there anything special i need to do for them? they seem to just stick their arms out of the rock i guess to filter feed.
in fact i just found a picture that shows exaclty what im talking about.

 

[ophiura]

Nope - nothing special. The one shown is basically full grown. just sit back and enjoy