Could any of these fish be ripping legs off my Brittle Stars?

GrumpyAlison

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I have two sentient tentacles in my tank (whole legs from my brittle stars with large pieces of central disk attached - curious to see if they spawn new brittle stars... but anyway) and I was wondering if any of the following fish (list below) would be prone to ripping my dudes in half. And they're not small brittle stars either - most are 8+ inches with 1+ inch central discs... I've had lost leg bits before, but never whole limbs being ripped off like this.

I'm also wondering if the brittle star could somehow be doing it itself for some reason? I know both tentacles came from the same dude (saw one missing and one star with 4 legs, found another this morning and a star with 3 legs.

Fish list:
Picasso clowns (~2")
lubbock's wrasse (~2.5")
mckoskers wrasse (~2.5")
green canary blenny (~2.5")
engineer goby (x2; 4")
skunk shrimp (2.5")
red brittle star (x4; all large; +2 if the tentacles grow...)

I've had all the brittles for like 2 years and they've never had issues like this before, but I recently upgraded my system and got some new fish (all new except clowns) and they're all supposed to be peaceful, but I was wondering if any would be likely to terrorize my stars.

Thanks!
I also have a video of one of the tentacles. if people are interested I can dig it up :p
 

dwest

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I would be surprised the fish are doing it. I would suspect hitchhiker crabs. I had the same thing happen. I caught the crabs using the tilted glass method.
 
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GrumpyAlison

GrumpyAlison

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I would be surprised the fish are doing it. I would suspect hitchhiker crabs. I had the same thing happen. I caught the crabs using the tilted glass method.
I'd be surprised if it's crabs, but I suppose that's possible. I haven't added any live rock/new anything to my tanks for years (since I've had my brittle stars) and I've just been repurposing existing rock from my old tanks (all started with dry rock) or adding new dry rock, but if I find any crabs I'll be immediately suspicious now. Thanks!
I also just redid all my rockwork which basically entailed breaking it apart with a chisel and mortaring it back together so it was sitting out of the water for like 7 hours at a time and getting misted every 20 minutes - i feel bad for any crabs that survived that, but all my little red dusters did, so who knows :p
 

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