Green Brittle Star

[kmmahan]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#I recently had a bunch of fish disappear-- I am now thinking my green brittle star is the culprit-- I got him when he was small but now he is huge-- is this possible?#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[Reef_Angel]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#FONT color=#ff7f00 size=2#ed_cl#I found this information by doing a quick search on them. There's ton's of info out there about the little buggers. You're not the only one that has bought one by accident. Seems you may have a muncher on your hands. Now you have to figure out what to do with him. Take him back to the LFS. When you bought him, did the person who got it out of the tank for you mention that if may eat fish? Any warnings? What a bummer! How many fish have you lost? ....Angel#ed_op#/FONT#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#FONT color=#00bf60 size=2#ed_cl##ed_op#/FONT#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#FONT color=#00bf60 size=2#ed_cl##ed_op#EM#ed_cl##ed_op#STRONG#ed_cl#O ne species in common use warrants a statutory warning. This is the Green Brittle Star of the genus Ophiarachna. This animal is a predatory fish eater, that does indeed do a spiffy janitorial job when small... but grows quickly, and under darkness of night can/does learn to eat aquarium fishes. This species has been documented to arch up in "sleeping caves" of captive fishes and drop down on unsuspecting meals. If you use this species, keep an eye on it, and a count on your piscine livestock. #ed_op#/STRONG#ed_cl##ed_op#/EM#ed_cl##ed_op#/FONT#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#FONT color=#00bf60#ed_cl##ed_op#FONT color=#ff007f size=2#ed_cl##ed_op#EM#ed_cl#Info collected from: #ed_op#/EM#ed_cl##ed_op#/FONT#ed_cl##ed_op#/FONT#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#A href="http://www.wetwebmedia.com/brittlestars.htm"#ed_cl##ed_op#FONT color=#ff007f size=2#ed_cl#http://www.wetwebmedia.com/brittlest...op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[kmmahan]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#The girl at the LFS said nothing . . . of course-- He was actually the first critter we got-- Well I thought I had a low oxygen problem or parasites-- I went and added a biowheel to the system along with a 24 watt UV sterilizer-- Before I added those things I lost a purple tang, midas blenny, neon goby, and a wrasse --basically all of my fish--(all small sized-- they usually slept at the bottom behind the rock--) butyesterday my pajama cardinal came up missing-- I guess my brittle"The Kracken"--(appropiately named inretrospect)has grown up-- I never thought that my fish were being eaten-- but looks like this could be what is going on--All I have is a fire clown and a GBM clown-- But they sleep in their anemone's up high-- Originally I just thought my tank was sick and the clowns were just really hardy--- I will take him out tomorrow and give him back to the LFS-- so some other sad sucker can buy him and kill a bunch of their fish-- It's sad- I really liked him-- but I also really liked my other fish . . .#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#WARNING TO ALL:LEAVE THE GREEN BRITTLES AT THESTORE!! #ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[Reef_Angel]

I have a reddish brown colored brittle star, and never ever thought of him as something that would eat my fish. Maybe I need to look him up to huh! I bought 4 fire fish goby's once, and we only saw 2 of them come out of the back just a little bit. They seemed scared to come out. I never saw any of them after that one time. My 'Brit' lives under any and all of those rocks, but I don't believe that the browns eat fish. I guess I should do some reading. I haven't lost any fish before or since, so they must have just died! Try to get your LFS to at least give you store credit for your little green monster! To bad they don't refund the fish he has in his belly to! We all find these things out the hard way, don't we? Bummer!!!

[kmmahan]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#IMG alt="image file name: 2k201a982a3e.jpg" src="http://www.captivereefing.com/richedit/upload/2k201a982a3e.jpg" border=0#ed_cl##ed_op#IMG style="WIDTH: 270px; HEIGHT: 185px" height=185 alt="image file name: 2kadab91c32d.jpg" src="http://www.captivereefing.com/richedit/upload/2kadab91c32d.jpg" width=268 border=0#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#I tried to use the image resizer from this site but it doesn't resize the image small enough for the uploading requirements. The image resizer that this site has changes the image to about 600 x 600 px but when you try to upload that image after resizing -- a window pops up saying that the image is too large and must be < 300 x 300 px (<50000 bytes)--I had to resize the image myself-- I have used the "image resizer"before and there was no problem-- I think it's the new message format that the site has-- #ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#DIV#ed_cl##ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[dakar]

Yup, I just ran into the same problem trying to upload a pic, looks like the "rich text" format needs some tweaking to match the rest of the board's settings... if you switch back over to the normal text mode, image size is restricted to 600x600 pixels.

I'll try to look at it tommorrow to see if I can fix that... Don't worry It'll annoy me more than anyone else until it's fixed....sorry about that.

[carpenterwrasse]

my brittle star has been the culprit of eating a couple of clowns they didn't arrive inthat great of shape from fosters and smith so they were fair game as they were concerned. I have 2 a fancy brittle star and a another one with more of a striped pattern and i see him in the back with his center off the ground often.

[kmmahan]

#ed_op#DIV#ed_cl#Is it all brittle stars or just the green one? Anybody know anything about the red one?#ed_op#/DIV#ed_cl#

[dakar]

okay fixed the image upload with the rich text editor, now its set to 600x600 pixels like the normal text editor. Thanks for finding the bug Kmmahan.

[carpenterwrasse]

someone told me they all do that