Damn Serpent !!!

[billy61]

My rather large serpent star ate my feather duster last night!!!
The duster was in the process of making a new tube for himself when the serpent took notice and snatched him up ..i saw this happen so i reached in the tank and started shaking the serpent ..only the "duster" end was showing from the bottom of the serpent.. after about 20 sec. of shaking he spit out the duster and retreated to the rocks. although i should have seperated them somehow i did not and also could not...so i just put him back in the sand to build a nice tube, covered by some rocks of course ..but the serpent found him again and the duster is no longer with us
Anybody ever hear of this kind of thing ..
I think if my serpent had a chance he would take down some of my fish!!

 

[beachlife]

wow..... I'm sorry about your duster man....
I have not really heard too much about serpent stars eating somthin like that..... But I guess the duster was there and the serpent was hungry....
That little

[hr]
!!

John.

 

[ophiura]

What color is the serpentstar, the green is a known predator and might very well take out some fish.
But ya know, what do we want these animals to do? They are living things, and this is INSTINCT. It is a risk of the hobby. They neither know nor care how much you paid for another animal. We throw together sometimes totally incompatible animals and get angry at the animals when it doesn't work out when they aren't doing anything unusual.
You have a featherduster that for whatever reason was out of its tube. This could be a stressed animal, sick animal, whatever and the brittlestar can smell this. YOu can't expect them to avoid eating it. We leave them half the time to scavenge for food.
What do you feed the serpentstar? Even if you do, it is no guarantee. The goal in life is to grow large and reproduce. They do not realize they have lost it and are doomed...so don't eat that worm. It was an opportunity.
But no, it is not unheard of, and IMO, not unexpected if there is some sort of stressed animal in the tank. So I would trade it back if this is a concern and not add any other brittle/serpentstar...all are a theoretical risk in this case.

 

[beachlife]

WOW nice post ophiura. Your 100% right.... These animals are goin to do what they do in nature and there is nothing we can do to stop that.......
One of my serpent stars is very agressive twards my fish... It can never catch anything but it sits on the highest ledge in my tank and ocassially trys to grab a fish..