Awesome Hitchhikers!!!

Went down to the LFS today to grab a few random things and picked up a decent sized frag of clove polyps. While putting it in the tank I had some things start to slowly crawl out onto my fingers. At first I freaked because they looked like worms but after a closer look they are baby brittle stars. We got 3 of them off of that frag and they are about the size of a thumbnail. Any idea how old they may be or how long it takes them to reach a decent size? They seem pretty content on staying in the polyps but they are pretty active.

 

they are probably micro brittle stars. i have some. what color are they and they will only get about 3cm across.

 

are they white? they probably are just small brittle stars, not babies. i have probably a hundred of them in my fuge.

 

They are brown/green in color and the tank they came out of had a giant green brittle in it. Any way to positively identify babies from micros?

 

not really.... it could be a baby. but im not so sure on how starfish reproduce. but i bet its a micro brittle. i have some they are gray/black they have stripes. jw what kind of lights do you have on. try turning on the daylight if you can still see them and see what color they are.

 

Right now they are under 14k and 454nm, they are brown/green under just the daylight and just brighter shades with the 454nm/14k on together

 

I would be careful if you think it could be offspring from green brittle stars...they are known to eat fish when they get large.

 

We have a large Brown Brittle Star and he keeps to himself underneath a rock he is very peaceful if they happen to be Green Brittle Stars and they start to hurt other things in our tank we'll be sure to trade them in to our LFS.

 

This is the closest I could find as an ID. I know it's not exact.

Saltwater Aquarium Inverts for Marine Reef Aquariums: Brittle Sea Star, Fancy Starfish

 

I doubt they are anything other than micro brittle stars. They are neat little hitch hikers though.