Fyi. I've been trying to figure out why my fire and ice colony was not happy or opening. Two baby stars were living in it swiping tentacle s and irritating them. Took out and dipped in coral RX and removed brittles. I'm hoping this was the issue. What is your opinion. Other corals and does are fine. Because everybody seems to say they are fine. I know they won't eat them. By the way I have a monster brittle living in the tank since my tanks inception and he has a 50!cent size body and 8 inch tentacles
Zoranthid colony - brittle star issue
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ViktorVaughn
New member
Not sure if the brittle stars would be bothering them or not, they would probably have to be quite large to cause any issues. My linckia starfish (10") crawls over the zoanthids which will close but re-open as soon as he moves along. I have quite a few bristle worms, some quite large, living in different big zoanthid colonies. Even when I feed my tank and the bristle worms come out of the zoanthid rock and crawl through and against the zoanthids they don't close or seem to mind at all. Sometimes I have just found certain colonies will close up for a day or more at a time while everything else in the tank remains open. Some of my zoanthids are far more finicky than others and will just close from time to time. Others are super hardy and never seem to close, I have a couple varieties that remain open all night and even stay open if I take them out of the water to work on them.
Have you inspected for zoanthid eating nudibranch's? I had them in the past and they caused the zoanthids to close and look irritated.
Have you inspected for zoanthid eating nudibranch's? I had them in the past and they caused the zoanthids to close and look irritated.
A. Grandis
Active member
There are many, many reasons why zoanthids would close or "look unhappy" for a while. Also, many times we see issues with certain species and/or specific colonies in particular which could be hard to figure out. Many times their problems seem to be temporary.
Inspection during day and night hours is the key to help us understand and unveil such issues. Predation is the first to look for, followed by irritators and diseases. Light, water flow and chemistry come next and so on...
There are many different species of brittle stars in the world. They are part of a very important group in the ocean's benthic "cleanup crew". That is the reason many support the idea of keeping them in closed systems. The problem is that some species do irritate our sessile organisms, like zoanthid colonies.
I've had lots of different types of brittle stars found in Hawaiian waters and came to the conclusion that many of them should be left in the ocean to make my life easier. I don't see any reason to keep them, specially because the majority is nocturnal and we won't see them anyways. LOL!!
That way I eliminate the possibility of irritation by the stars and can look for other possibilities.
Same here with those ugly, but sometimes still beautiful, bristle worms.
They are unnecessary to keep and not worthy the trouble at all.
Although they could be found among zoanthids' polyps in the ocean, again, our home tanks aren't the ocean at all!!
This is my US $0.02 on the subject.
Hope you can find out what's going on and solve the case there!
Good luck!
Grandis.
Inspection during day and night hours is the key to help us understand and unveil such issues. Predation is the first to look for, followed by irritators and diseases. Light, water flow and chemistry come next and so on...
There are many different species of brittle stars in the world. They are part of a very important group in the ocean's benthic "cleanup crew". That is the reason many support the idea of keeping them in closed systems. The problem is that some species do irritate our sessile organisms, like zoanthid colonies.
I've had lots of different types of brittle stars found in Hawaiian waters and came to the conclusion that many of them should be left in the ocean to make my life easier. I don't see any reason to keep them, specially because the majority is nocturnal and we won't see them anyways. LOL!!
That way I eliminate the possibility of irritation by the stars and can look for other possibilities.
Same here with those ugly, but sometimes still beautiful, bristle worms.
They are unnecessary to keep and not worthy the trouble at all.
Although they could be found among zoanthids' polyps in the ocean, again, our home tanks aren't the ocean at all!!
This is my US $0.02 on the subject.
Hope you can find out what's going on and solve the case there!
Good luck!
Grandis.
