Brittle Star Reproduction

[SoCalReefer]

I just witnessed my brittle star crawl up from under it's rock, and release what appeared to be hundreds of eggs. i dont know much about there're reproduction, so any info would help. I was in luck, i had turned off my skimmer earlier, during a water change, maybe that triggered it or it was just time. I only have one large brittle star that i'm aware of, so i dont know if they eggs are fertile or not.

[CarmieJo]

I don't really know anything about starfish breeding except that usually it takes two to tango. I recommend you head on over to Project DIBS and ask about this. DIBS stands for Desirable Invertebrates Breeding Society and there are tons of knowledgeable people there.

[SoCalReefer]

i'll look there, thanx carmie

[CarmieJo]

Someone else here might know of course but DIBS is a great resource.

[graphixx]

I have had this happen in one of my frag tanks, I dont know what triggered it but I was moving a couple frags to another tank and noticed that a few of my green digitata frags were COVERED in brittle stars and from further looking there were stars allover the place its like they all crawled out of there hiding places and some started to "release" into the colum I tried to get pics of it but the only thing I got was them on the corals. but I tried to keep an eye on stuff but to no avail but it was very very interesting. the whole thing lasted for probably 2 hours. actually my avatar is a pic of a piece of digitat covered in brittle stars.

[Budde]

Remember that Starfish can redroduce Sexually and ASexually.

[CarmieJo]

Brittle stars can reproduce asexually by fissiparous division. This is when one or more of the arms breaks off with a substantial portion of the disc. But for eggs to develop into new stars you would need sperm to fertilize them. I suppose they may be hermaphrodites but many hermaphrodites don't self fertilize.