Excuse me . . . . Ophiura

[justinx]

I have a question for you . . . . I have a serpent star that has been in my 20H reef tank for about 10 months or so. It lives under a rock and has never come out from his burrow during daylight hours, occasionally at night I will see him scavenging, but not always.
Anyway . . . to the point here, I have been horrible about feeding him. I dont think that I fed him once during the first six months that I had him. I assumed since he was still alive, he was getting fed and doing well. Then i started reading posts about starfish taking up to a year to starve. So I started to spot feed a quarter cube of Formula One frozen food as often as I can remember to. Unfortunately this is not as often as it probably should be, probably two to three times a month. That and when i do spot feed, i question how much food the star actually gets as I have greedy hermits and fish. However recently I think that it has learned (if this is possible) as it will take its entire body and engulf the food with it and it seems like it protects it pretty well.
So my question is two-fold: How often should I be spot feeding? And is there an easy way that I can do it?
Thanks
Justin

 

[leigh]

I'm no ophiura--but if you wave food near its den it'll stick at least an arm out. it'll be shy at first but it'll learn quickly--then it gets easier as the starfish knows that once it sees you it's meal time. (all my fish go after the turkey baster--when i try to spot feed anything my purple tang whaps on the end of the turkey baster until i feed him)...so just try with waving some stuff in it's general direction and it'll stick out an arm...i find shrimp pellets are a super easy thing to feed them...i also feed mine frozen food, but the shrimp pellets i can just drop right at their burrows...i'm sure susan will pipe in with better info too soon! 'til then hth

 

[offshore80]

I'm just a newbie here... and what I've been doing to feed mine is thaw out some frozen brine shrimp then suck it up in and eye dropper and squirt it into his legs... Boy it's all over it like a hobo on a ham sandwich. Just a sugestion. I'm only a pepermint shrimp here.

 

[justinx]

Well . . . my problem is not getting the food to him. He grabs it perfectly well on his own and even goes for my finger sometimes. It sure does feel strange when they grab hold! But my problem is getting him to either eat fast enough that he is protected from the other animals, or is sheltered from them. His meal usually gets stolen by something or another

 

[leigh]

give him small pieces...he'll just grab them and stick them straight into his belly...that's why i like those shrimp pellets--i drop them near him and normally 3 arms each grab one, he pulls them inside and uses the other two arms to crawl back into a hole...works pretty well! what do you have that's stealing his food? just how many hermit crabs are there in this tank?!?

 

[justinx]

I might have to try shrimp pellets. I have never seen these before, but i'll look at the LFS. I have about 9 hermits total in a 20H. About 6 scarlets (which are not at fault here) and 3 zebras (the little

[hr]
!).

 

[leigh]

hmm...my zebras are nowhere near so aggressive--maybe you can find them a new home? and don't even look at the LFS...you'll pay too much...go to petsmart/***** or even your grocery store--the pellets i'm talking about are just Wardley Shrimp Pellet Formula--pretty low-end cheap stuff...probably beneath your lfs

 

[ophiura]

I am a big fan of shrimp pellets as well. But in terms of how often, well, that is a tough call, because it depends on how often you feed your fish, etc. Sounds like there is not a lot of leftover food to go around though. But I can't tell you how often, because water quality can vary dramatically from tank to tank. That is something to be worked out yourself. One key question though is does that animal look to be any smaller then when you got it...larger?

 

[justinx]

You know . . . . it is really hard to tell because I never really see the entire animal. If I had to make a guess though, I would say larger.
I feed my tank every other day for the most part and alternate between the frozen and some flake.
I am going to try shrimp pellets, hopefully nobody else will like them!
Another note/question . . . . . are starfish capable of learning? and what type of central nervous system do they posses? (I am a huge neurosciece nerd) I took an invertebrate neurology class, but we never really touched on starfish. Just about every other marine animal though.