brittle stars breeding?

[stiltman]

first of all, are these brittle stars?

they came as hitchikers on my mushrooms. i think they are welcomed. the only thing is, every brittle star I see online grows to be a foot long.

i've had them for probably 6 months or so. there is about 6 or 7 of them in my small tank.

tonight, i was doing some maintenance on my tank. for the first time i saw them extremely active. i had the lights off because i was cleaning out the fans and salt creep of my hood.

the "brittle stars" came out and started moving all over the tank for the first time. usually they just hide in the live rock. at least as far as i've been able to observe. one star came up to the waterline and release a milky substance into the water. i thought it may have been trying to mate, but no other star was next to it. then two stars crawled up the live rock and onto the power cord for my heater. they were together for about 5 minutes. i did not see the milky substance that the other star released.

can anyone id these guys for me? are the breeding?

thanks.

pics to come, having trouble

 

[stiltman]

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m22/jonahmazz/11-06-2010/004.jpg

 

[stiltman]

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m22/jonahmazz/11-06-2010/001.jpg

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

looks like Ophiactis spp.

common in reef aquaria and they do breed

great "reef janitor"

 

[stiltman]

thanks!

 

[stiltman]

one more pic....

this is the only time i have seen them out in the open and the only time on a coral as well

http://i100.photobucket.com/albums/m22/jonahmazz/008.jpg

 

[Gary Majchrzak]

these guys stay small (2" max diameter) and tend to climb out in the open like that to spawn.

this happened very quickly while I was eating breakfast -so please excuse the blurry pic

I've never seen a pic of these stars reproducing (anywhere) before so I had to make a dash for my camera. The little fella marched out from beneath the hammer coral and started puffing away on extended legs. I only caught the very last second of the event with my picture

 

[stiltman]

cool, thanks.