Bad star fish bad!

saltaddict

saltaddict

Member
Ok has anyone seen or experieced this. Added a tiger (banded)serpent starfish to my tank this week end. Everything I read on the net said peaceful detritus eater. Woke up this morning when I noticed it had a yellow tail damsel in it's mouth . I didn't think these animals could actually capture a fish?
 
supercichlid

supercichlid

Member
Is it possible that the damsel was already injured or sick? Being scavangers, they will scavange....
But, i have heard of Serpent stars (and brittle stars) "tenting up" and catching small fish...but this was a rare case i believe...
James:)
 
bobothewizard

bobothewizard

Member
Cant see why not, i hand feed my serpent big pieces of shrimp. He wraps his arm around it and takes it right out of my fingers and then stuff the whole thing in his mouth, its kinda funny because you can see his center disc take the shape of the shrimp.
 
slothy

slothy

Active Member
im with SuperCichlid on that, chances are it was sick or even dead.. unless your star is that hungry...
 
rsd

rsd

Member
How big is your star?
My Brittle (the sea-monster) got to be rather large @8" and he actively hunted. He would stand on his tip-"toes" and hold that position (tenting?) and if anything swam under him he would twist so that there was no escape and a serious battle began until he suffocated what ever he caught.
Feed him regularly or this traight begins. I fed mine 1/day and he calmed down, but, he also grew twice as fast.
Finally sold him to LFS for 2 small (1 1/2 " yellow brittles)
Good luck.
 
saltaddict

saltaddict

Member
That fish might have been weak since he was being picked on the last two days. I really don't know how long the starfish had gone without food since I got him last Sat and due to ignorance I had not fed him I thought he would scavenge left over food and detrius. Live and learn does who feed how often do you do it ?
 
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