Feather Stars

[NaNoReEfFeR]

Okay, ive had a mini reef setup in my nano cube for approx 5 months. I have 2 green buble tips, a cleaner shrimp, a mandarin goby, some rido's, a common purpletip anen., and a percula. THey have been doing good for sometime now. I bought a bright green feather star today for $20. The thing looks awesome and from what ive read they are hard to keep but for that bargain i figured ild give it a shot. I have a shipment of copopods, amphipods, and other mini invert goodies comin in and am wonderiing if anyone has had any sucess keeping these for any amount of time? thanks-

Nich

 

[mogurnda]

To my knowledge, few or no hobbyists have had luck keeping these. They have very specific requirements with regard to food (large amounts of plankton), and currents. If anything, a large system with a very large refugium may work, but even that osn't likely.

Feather stars are on most authors' lists of "currently unable to keep."

Sorry to be a wet blanket, and I wish I were wrong.

 

[NaNoReEfFeR]

= (

I figured as much, I have ordered a very large quantity of live plankton (larval-adult form) along with phyto-plankton and well see ho it does off of that. I target fed iut last night when it extended its arms and feeding tubules with microvert through a pipette and i could actually see it carry some small buits of yeelow stuff down to its oral groove on the spikes on its arms, was somewhat encouraging. I have the run off from my "nano" refug. aimed right at it so im going to keep my fingers crossed on this guy. Also the lfs i bought it from has had it for about 4 months in thier open air reef tank.....ill post my progress with this facinating creature......

 

[mogurnda]

I wish you luck. There doesn't seem to be much specific info out there about how to go about caring for them, and it probably depends alot on the species you have.

They are beautiful and cool, though.

 

[Max]

Mine has made it for about 6 months so far. I'm not sure that it's exactly thriving but, for what it's worth it's still around. I feed mine cyclopese , baby brine, invert feeder suspension with vitamins by Eye dropper in the evening with my filtration and skimmer turned off. They also love live baby brine . These guys don't react at all well to stress they tend to do things like pull their arms off also don't touch it if you can help it. I probably wouldn't have bought it if I knew what I know now because it's limited the fish and other species that I can keep in my main tank. They really do need to eat a lot and only food of a specific size. It likes about the same water quality as the anemones but a lot more flow. It will let you know that you aren't meeting it's idea conditions by ... pulling it's arms off. They will grow back but, they won't as quick as it can pull them off if stressed. Also avoid aggresive fish because I don't think that it would make it. I wish that I had a camera I'd post some pics but.. If it's like mine though it will hide during the day time and only come out at night to feed. Also make SURE you screen your intake it will find it. If you have any more questions I'll answer them if I can. These guys are pretty but are a big pita much harder than sps or anemones except for the light requirments of course.
Just some things to consider mine was $80 bye the way and is black and yellow I've been all over the net and to reference libraries and have no clue what kind it is.
hth
Chris
p.s. sorry for the long post p.m. me if you have more specific questions. welcome to aquaria central by the way!

 

[NaNoReEfFeR]

Thanks for the info!

I have a very high flow tank as just the filtration syst. is 90gph and i have a mini power head rated at 30-70 gph (i have a 12 gal nanocube) and my inhabitants are doing very well. I have about 15-18 lbs of very cavernous live rock and 2" of live sand throughout. I can see the cilia like feeding tubes that extend from the spikes on its arms whe it is unfurled.....i cannot find my specimen anywhere on the net and would like to fg. out its species....so far everyone i talked to has never seen a bright green one.....

 

[NaNoReEfFeR]

IT EATS!!!!

I can actually see this thing eat! VeryVey cool!
I just came in my room and it is precasiously pearched on the overhang of liverock all extended and what not, but with closer inspection i can see the very bottom set of spikes (that is a technical term....) taking extremely small debris from the arms and into the mouth.....i now "see" how they transport food from the arms to mouth. That has got to be one of the most interesting feeding habits ive even seen, and definitley the most entertaing out of a star! Just wanted to update the post....im going to try to video tape it with my friends camera next weekend as i think it would be very good to see the eating habbits first hand rather than read of them on such a unique and hard to find creature.