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Mini Brittle Star Spawning

S

SurfnTurf

Very cool event last night. I have some mini brittle stars in my 30 gallon reef tank and I can usually just see the arms of 3 of them (big minis) hanging out of crevices near the top of the reef formation. I did a water change last night and I saw one of them come out and climb around to the back of the coral growing at the highest rock peak (I have never seen them come all the way out before) and hang out there for a while. Eventually it lifts its body and squirts out some white fluid. Around 10 minutes later another one climbs up high on a kenya tree about 4 inches away and the four parts of its body start pulsating wildly in a circular pattern until some tiny white eggs shoot out. Then the day light timer clicked off and it was just the moonlights. About 15 minutes later I come back to check again and see another one climb out and reach an arm out to the one still on the kenya tree. They each entwine one arm together then lift their bodies up with their bellies angled towards each other and then they both squirt out some more white fluid towards each other. Very cool thing to see and now I'm curious to see if any babies arrive down the road (but not counting on it).
 
Phyl

Phyl

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Mini brittle stars are like rabbits. They multiply pretty well and I'm sure you'll eventually see more (as if you could count them) down the road. That's really cool that you got to watch it.
 
S

SurfnTurf

Phyl said:
Mini brittle stars are like rabbits. They multiply pretty well and I'm sure you'll eventually see more (as if you could count them) down the road. That's really cool that you got to watch it.
Click to expand...
Thanks, I hope so. I used to have more and they were all tiny but I have only caught a glimpse of these 3 (and they are 3x the size they were last year). I thought I would get more if they split themselves but I'm not betting the ranch on eggs hatching (but it will be fun to look out for them now). The main thing for me is that although I don't put a lot of effort in to the tank, (I don't supplement, don't run a skimmer, sometimes use local sea water and sand, and I don't do many water changes), I still have animals spawning like they do in the wild and some coral colonies really taking off. I find the ratio of minimal maintenance input to tank enjoyment output very rewarding and little things like this just kind of confirm that despite my relatively lazy ways, the tank is still kind of doing all right
 
Sandee

Sandee

So another quick question about these mini Brittle Stars ... mine are just like this pix, from the Metropolitan State College of Denver (interesting courses on inverts). It doesn't say if they're harmful to coral ... since they're crawling ALL OVER everything at night, I'm wondering. I understand they help with detritus, however. Whatcha think? I noticed tonight - they're getting bigger ... their body is about 1/8 of an inch in diameter.

brittle.jpg


Pix from http://clem.mscd.edu/~churchcy/BIO3200/outline/animalia/echinodermata.htm
 
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