What is this??

[sonubhai]

Hey all can someone tell me what this is, I have them in my tank around the zoa's and the cause of them possibly them being closed all the time. I dipped a frag and these came out.

 

[DeepBrew]

It looks like a brittle star to me. I think most consider them a desirable part of a clean up crew. I have found one or two in my tank before and left them there.

 

[sonubhai]

Is there any way to get rid of them it seems like they are stopping my zoas from opening up

 

[DeepBrew]

I don't know of anything other than manual removal, maybe someone else will chime in.

Do you have a sand bed in your tank? My brittle stars have always stayed buried in the sand and I only see them if I happen to disturb one cleaning. I've never seen one up on the rocks around my zoas.

 

[cloak]

You could try siphoning them out one by one, but I would look elsewhere as to why your zoanthids won't open up. If you haven't already you might want to dip the zoanthids in something like Revive or Coral Rx. Maybe this will help.

http://zoaid.org/gmedia-gallery/zoanthid_predators_irritators/

 

[sonubhai]

@cloak thanks let me look at this.