I just got a serpeant starfish and a brittle starfish, when feeding them, is it just normal cocktail shrimp that you cut up and place by them or is it something else? Also, what else can you feed them beside shrimp?
starfish
- Thread starter scottdwh
- Start date
Boogiechillin
It's ok, I confuse my students too.
They will eat anything meaty (shrimp, krill, silversides, etc etc) along with most any type of flake or prepared food that reaches the bottom. You can target feed them with a skewer or tongs by just getting the food close to an arm - the star will "smell" the food and will do the rest for you. Neither should bother anything else provided that you keep them fed - don't expect them to get enough to eat just by grabbing the scraps missed by the fish.
Boogiechillin
It's ok, I confuse my students too.
Well I dunno about the majority of them, but I was told that the emerald brittle star is VERY destructive towards sanbed fauna. Since that is usually the one most people have, I kinda assumed that was what the poster was referring to.
Well, actually Ron Shimek told me this after I confused what kind of stars he was referring to. I replied to a poster on another board about the tiny brittles that live in the sand I misread one of his articles in a magazine and told this person they may potentially feed on sand fauna. Shimek almost immediately replied stating it was actually the larger stars that feed on sand fauna, not the smaller guys that live in the sand. I can honestly say I never noticed a decrease in my sand fauna in the short time I had my star, but I'm not a PhD invertebratologist either 