serpent star

[npaladen]

I just got a invert package from swf.com, and it came with two serpent stars among other things. My questin is this, do I have to feed the serpent stars anything special, or will they just scavenge everything they need? My tank has a snowflake eel in it that is a little bit of a messy eater, so if they just need a few scraps every now and then they should be fine.
Thanks in advance for any help

 

[@knight]

your serpents will fend for themselves, but I trow mine a chunk of krill every now and then.

 

[flydan]

Hey,
Yup. They are scavangers and don't need direct feeding. Once in a while I give them a treat, but it's not necessary. I don't do it often because I don't want them to get lazy about their cleaning duties!
Dan'l

 

[master of all the reefs]

get rid of the serpant stars! not only will they scavenge any food they can find, but they will also go after,fish,corals,shrimp,and anything else they can fit into their mouth. trust me,it happend to me! it got two clowns, colt cuttings, a peppermint shrimp, and a whole lot of snails and hermits. go get a brittle star. they are alot better.

 

[joetst2]

I have a rather large green serpent star and haven't had any problems of him eating fish. However, they do tend to be a more aggresive variety. I had a dragon goby die in my tank and the night he died, which he wasn't doing well and I knew his death was imminent, the serpent start was having a midnight snack on him. He then started roaming around the tank, which he doesn't do very often and was dragging the fish carcas. I scooped it out of the tank and the serpent star did not want to let him go. If you have plenty of live rock and waste producing fish and other livestock he should be fine.

 

[flydan]

Hey,
Ooops! I was using Serpent stars and Brittle stars interchangeably. Sorry... mine are Brittle stars. Hope I didn't steer you wrong!
Dan'l

 

[b_ball12_99]

You'll find that your serpent stars will crawl from under your rocks at feeding time and graqb what food they can. My friends sees his do this at feedings, told me, and a week later I saw it happen.

 

[avacyn]

Serpent stars are more aggressive than brittle stars and have been guilty of taking out the occasional small fish or critter. Brittle stars are generally not aggressive and will eat scraps. You can throw the occasionally bit of brine shrimp or small bits of whatever their way, but you don't have to specifically feed them, especially if someone else in the tank is a messy eater.
Avacyn

 

[npaladen]

Just a little update for all of those reading this post. I just witnessed the larger of the two serpent stars eat what appeared to be one of my scarlet hermits that also came with my package. Now this is not the end of the world since I got a ton of them in the package, but I may have to come up with something to do if they start dissappearing too fast. And since I missed the actual attack I am hoping that it was just the molted remains of one of the hermits, all though I find that to be a little unlikely.
Thanks for all of the replies, With the exception of this they seem to be getting along quite well with all of my other tank inhabitants.