Micro Brittle Stars spawning?

[Ethan_W]

there's probably around 50+ micro brittle stars that came with my live rock from a fellow reefer's tank. i completely changed my aquascaping a few days ago and about an hour after, just about every brittle star decided to climb to the tops of the rocks. normally they rarely come out of the holes unless it's a hopeful one trying to grab a piece of food.

on a few of those rocks, there was a bigger brittle star standing over the other ones spewing out a white fluid. i assumed it was spawning. what causes this event to take place? and how many brittle stars should i expect to see in my system in the future because of it?

[dots]

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-06/ac/feature/index.php

This may help....I don't know if this is the specie you are seeing.

[Ethan_W]

im talking about these guys. i hear they dont get much bigger than the size of a quarter

http://i630.photobucket.com/albums/uu22/swankk137/IM005958mbrittlestar2.jpg

[bertoni]

They probably can't reproduce by spawning in our tanks, but you might see some more eventually. There are a lot of animals in the sea, and many have long larval stages that require specialized food.

[osanifish]

Do you know if they are harmful? I just found a pair on a piece I purchased last month. Initially I thought they could be bristle worms until I got a closer look.

[Sugar Magnolia]

Perfectly harmless and a great detrivore.

[trb]

Mine did that about a month ago. Lights were out except for moonlights, and the water was all cloudy. I thought something died or bad happened to the tank, then I saw the brittle stars climbing all over the rocks. I have gone from just a few brittle stars to probably 50 plus in about a year.

[lananthony]

Same here. I see them the most when I feed. All i see are their little legs reaching out for food. I must have over 50 in my 120gal.

[bertoni]

I paid good money for my supply. :) I liked them. They are detritivores, as stated.

[Misled]

It's funny to watch. Here's a couple pics. They get up on their "tiptoes" and just start spewing. The clowns thought it was feeding time.

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q68/jllndmb/DSCN9364.jpg

http://i133.photobucket.com/albums/q68/jllndmb/DSCN9363.jpg

[syrinx]

I started with a few- would be suprised if I have less than 4 or 500 now. Everytime I do a larger than normal water change or mess with sand or sump overly- they do the swarm and spawn. They literally can cover every square inch of live rock when they do this- and every other day you just see the occasional arm.

[reefsforme]

I had the same problem with them, reproducing like crazy. But they never caused any harm to my invertebrates, and man, they move fasssssst. lol