Starfish

[jinners]

its really curious to know what the starfish actually eats, does anyone actually know?

cause i've observed that they do not take the food pellets on the sand....

soo what do they eat?can anyone please enlighten me

[Limpc]

Hi,

Got a couple of experience to share.

1. Saw one of which picking up feeding shrimp from the sand bed.

2. Once, I overturn a starfish and place one small piece of shrimp nnto its mouth. Soon, it swallop the whole piece.

Limpc

[jinners]

ok....

does that mean i have to feed it by the means of inverting it, or would it be ok if i just left it as it is...to look for its own food

[bawater]

depends- there are soo many kinds of them.

u can try a small piece of prawn or mussel(from NTUC). just put it under one of the legs.Did that to a red one i had.

my choc chip starfish sometimes comes to the top & inverts- so i feed a little frozen brineshrimp or mysis right onto its mouth.

[derf]

i never fed my star but sumhw it committed suicide by getting caught in my powerhead...

[hongqixian]

Chocolate chips (protoaster nodosus or something like dat) eat anything they can get their mouth on, including corals, anemones, crustaceans and maybe tiny fish at night. Nasty animals. The large green brittlestars and some stars wave their arms in the water and are able to capture fish.

[VANAN]

i once had a brown knobbed starfish. A real beauty... It was given to me by my fathers fren. I used to put my fish meat or shrimp meat directly under the starfish or sometimes just leave it nearby... i was astonished to see how the starfish raced to the point... dun noe how it smelled the food.

There was once i forgot to feed it and it went around and digested two goni (given by the same person)... what an expensive meal.

Unfortunatly, my pistol shrimp who was doing some underground excuvation caused one the rocks to fall on my starfish... and i didn't noe it.

My starfish wasn't moving for a week and when i found out , it was with a deep cut and the a rock on top of it. ( funny i didn't see the rock on top of it for a week) and the starfish started smelling so i had to remove it.

[Bluebeard]

starfish seems to have a very good radar for food! hahaa.... right now my choco chip starfish is inside my protein skimmer!!! i don't know how it know that there is lots of algea inside. the entrance is blocked by the air stone but the starfish still manage to get inside and eat the algea!

also, when i feed the fishes with flakes, the starfish will move to the water surface and open it's 'mouth' and start eating some how.

[BarraCudaTM]

when starfish eat .. you can see their whole stomach coming out!

its a white transparent mulcus like thingy and will wrap around its food until the food became liquid

[Achilles Tang]

You guys keeping starfish?

If its for a reef tank, the only safe starfishes are from the Linkia and Fromia family.

Linkias can grow very big but they are a nice baby blue....

Fromias are smaller but are bright red.

They only consume detritus, microalgae and tiny stuff...

[Tanzy]

Actually Linckia laevigata (Blue sea star) doesn't eat detritus, it is actually mostly eating bacteria and slime.

Article on Sea Stars by Rob Toonen

[Achilles Tang]

well......... i did say the tiny stuff!

[BarraCudaTM]

hrmm .. any idea if the blue starfish eat red slime?

[Tanzy]

I use to have 2 blue sea stars and they will not even go near that stuff! I think red slime is quite poisonous.

[BarraCudaTM]

I know a certain type of hermit does eat them but which type? orange legs hermit?

[Tanzy]

It seems that anecdotal evidence suggests that some hermits crabs eat that stuff. I have a few species of hermit crabs but they won't even eat dinoflagellate. I don't have a outbreak of cyanobacteria in my tank now, so I don't know how they will react. Are you having cyano problems?

[BarraCudaTM]

they are starting to grow on the glass

I'm growing turtleweed so I had to keep the nutrients level high

I dont really like to use chemical products unless there is no other options

I'm trying to find a biological way of controlling them, I read somewhere some hermits do eat them but putting in the wrong species can screw up yr setup too. I had the blue legged type .. but they eat hair and green algae .. heard that the orange/reg legged type does eat redslime .. you got any experience with them?

[Stenopus Hispidus]

Hi BarraCuda,

I have a couple of orange ###### black legged type and a red leg type. Both doesn't eat red slime in my tank. They will just walk off to somewhere with green hair or brush algae and pick from there. Think there's something distasteful about red slime to all sea creatures (snails, starfish, crabs, etc).

Best solution...just get your hands wet and dispose of it.

[BarraCudaTM]

cannot ah .. if I touch them .. they will break and spread even faster

[Stenopus Hispidus]

What you can do is to use a tube (small diameter type) and siphon the slime out neat and clean. That way, there is no chance of the old slime settling somewhere else.

[tigershark]

i read from some article that some starfish (carnival) cannot keep with clam.... izzit true?? i intend to keep one once my lion and clown is out from my nano.... btw, what is "red slime" that u guys refering to??? never seen it in my tank, izzit very harmful to soft coral??

[Tanzy]

Blue sea stars are perfectly fine to keep with clams. Get one for your tank but I think you won't see it a lot once it starts hiding in the rocks. They eat bacteria and small stuff so a aquarium can't support many.

The red slime is cyanobacteria. It is poisonous to many organisms. They like to grow at the base of softies. A little is normal but if they start to spread and cover the coral then it will kill it.

Siphon out as much cyanobacteria with detritus as you can. Once established they can be proliferic. They can fix nitrogen so they aren't reliant on nitrate levels of the tank. The main thing to watch is phosphates and DOC.

I recommend that you,

1)Do a few water change to lower the nitrate level to less than 5 ppm. Even at 5 ppm it is 1000 times higher than in natural seawater, the turtle grass should be fine.

2)Get a phosphate sponge and run some good carbon.

3)Check your lighting and make sure it is not too old. Old lighting will have shifted it's spectrum giving out more red light causing cyano to thrive.

4) Dose iron. It has been shown that they might not compete as well in iron rich environment. Dosing iron will help your sea grass grow faster and outcompete the cyano for nutrients. (I have no experience with this suggestion, not orthodox but it works sometimes but may also aggravate the situation)

[BarraCudaTM]

just added a capful of iron

[Tanzy]

I recommend that you do all of the above not just one.

[hongqixian]

they are starting to grow on the glass

I'm growing turtleweed so I had to keep the nutrients level high

I dont really like to use chemical products unless there is no other options

I'm trying to find a biological way of controlling them, I read somewhere some hermits do eat them but putting in the wrong species can screw up yr setup too. I had the blue legged type .. but they eat hair and green algae .. heard that the orange/reg legged type does eat redslime .. you got any experience with them?

I suppose it's your preference. Good luck and I hope your tank is rid of the stuff! I saw someone's tank smothered in it.