High Tide Aquatics

Chromis’s 90g Acropora tank

Is it possible that brittlestars are breeding sexually in my tanks? I think I’ve been finding baby brittle stars for some time - they are tiny colorless/white starfish. I have one tank where the brittlestars are getting seriously big but they are staying small in the others. And… this is the weirdest part… all of them mostly have six legs now.
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Then I saw the brittlestars spawning last night - the six-leggers all started doing it after I tried to frag some overgrown acros which released a lot of coral slime and seemed to kick things off - is it possible there is some starfish natural selection happening in my tank? Is it possible the six-leggers are a “leg ahead” when it comes to asexual reproduction - that is, starting new starfish by dropping legs here and there?
 
I once saw like every single surface in my tank covered by them in the middle of the night. I assume that’s what was happening. Gave me the willies. It was seriously more than i could’ve imagined
 
Coral reefer said:
I once saw like every single surface in my tank covered by them in the middle of the night. I assume that’s what was happening. Gave me the willies. It was seriously more than i could’ve imagined
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Yea it’s unbelievable how many brittlestars are actually in there!
 
Tank update. I guess the big change is that I removed the green monti colony from the left side because it was overgrown (lots of dead layers accumulated under the new ones). I left some of the undergrowth because it makes a cool bridge structure. I wasn’t able to remove it in one piece like this other one which is now a nice decoration…
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Chromis said:
Is it possible that brittlestars are breeding sexually in my tanks? I think I’ve been finding baby brittle stars for some time - they are tiny colorless/white starfish. I have one tank where the brittlestars are getting seriously big but they are staying small in the others. And… this is the weirdest part… all of them mostly have six legs now.
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Then I saw the brittlestars spawning last night - the six-leggers all started doing it after I tried to frag some overgrown acros which released a lot of coral slime and seemed to kick things off - is it possible there is some starfish natural selection happening in my tank? Is it possible the six-leggers are a “leg ahead” when it comes to asexual reproduction - that is, starting new starfish by dropping legs here and there?
Click to expand...
Yes!
I have seen several spawning events by the britt stars, royal urchins and trochus snails
well done by you!!
 
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I finally made an effort to remove the encrusting monti that was creeping along the bottom front seam. It may be the reason that bottom front seam hasn’t failed… it’s cemented together by a foot of coral skeleton. I could not even remove most of it, just couldn’t get the edge of a razor under the middle 80% at all. I resorted to covering it in CaRX rubble to smother it.

I am still having some hair algae grow between corals where there isn’t a way for snails or urchins to reach it anymore, and it’s really a bummer. But I got some dwarf hermits after I realized (how many years in? :) they can clamber across corals to get the hair algae where snails and urchins can’t. So far they seem to be helping.
 
Thank you! Upgrade? Maybe when this last chromis finally kicks and I’d just have the yellow tang and 2 clowns left to move…
 
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