Ophiura

[tizzo]

Am I bugging you yet?? Got another star question. This thread has 2 reasons actually,
1. It has a better clearer shot of a minibrittle than the last one I took (I found a new setting on my camera a few days ago, yippee!!)
Oh and 2, his center disk isn't round. It's funny shaped and white on the left side (of the pic). If he's dying, it's not like I can dig him out and save him, but I am asking in case what you see here is an indication of something bigger, and obviously cause curiosity's got me... Here we go!

 

[bbnglodt]

My experience is that all brittles are lumpy and somewhat irregular shaped in the central disk area. That however is wierd IMHO. If you see him again, I would prolly take him out of the main and put him either in one of those hanging fuges (so you can remove him ASAP if you notice him getting wierder) , or in a quarantine tank.... or just take him out

. But if the rest of your fishies, and corals are doing ok and your water looks good, who knows. I do have two observations that I've made 1. if you've had problems before, your more likely to isolate or remove... the "oh no, not this stuff again" panic mode, 2. if you haven't your more likely to wait and watch. At least thats how it is for my friends. Whenever I talk to one of them who have had a tank sickness they're like "TAKE IT OUT TAKE IT OUT YOU'LL KILL EVERYTHING IT HAPPENED TO ME!", if they havent they're like "eh, prolly nothing, check your water, check your other fish, blah, blah, blah" You running a U/V irradiator? I think they help and work great... I seen others that dont agree. But such is life. So short answer... if your worried... take him out.

 

[bbnglodt]

OOPS sorry I just saw you meant for ophiura to reply not general response.... my bad

 

[tizzo]

No no that's for anybody to respond. I only pinpoint her because usually every star question is directed to, or verified by her.
As for your response though... I am a diehard QTer, (have a fish in there now) but not with this critter. Do you realize I would hafta remove about 25 corals some encrusted, 180 lbs of live rock then sift through the crushed coral pretty much piece by piece til I find this guy then there's still no guarentee since he very well could be in a hole in the LR. But all this movement of LR and sustrate would cause an ammonia spike so bad that i'd pretty much hafta start all over with this whole reef-keeping thing. No way!! This star could grow a human head off the end of one of it's arms and I still won't remove him!!

If he were bigger than a dime...maybe. But under the current circumstances, removing him would do far more damage than anything HE could do to my tank!!
I am actually going through in my mind the steps I would need to take to get him out and I hafta laugh cause this star is so tiny... :hilarious

 

[murph145]

i have a lot of those mini brittles in my sand too tizzo.... i look at them close cuz they hang out along the front of the glass under my LTA and they look the same .... disc arent regular shaped nor the same color.... i just think thats how they are..... i mean i can count 10 or more hanging out at the base of my LTA and they all have random features

 

[tizzo]

Thanks Murph, that's good to know. I usually can see a lot also, but I never really looked for irregularities. This one was kinda posing for the pic, and after I blew it up, I noticed...so thanks again.

 

[ophiura]

This particular species is a brooder and can have many juveniles in the disk at any given time. I would reckon, though it is impossible to know for sure without dissecting it, that it might have juveniles in there resulting in the strange shape.
BTW, you were who I was looking for for this picture Can I use it on the "hitch hiker ID" sticky? PURDY PLEASE?????

 

[tizzo]

Yeah sure, that's why I tried to get a clearer shot for ya. Got some asterinas too if you want them.
I got good shot of pyramid snails and all kinds of stuff, where can we post them to see if they are good or clear enough for that hitch-hiker thread?? (or can we?)