snails,starfish & brittle stars

chief26

Member
what do snails, starfish and brittle stars eat. I believe snails eat alge but i was told that starfish eat snails and small fish and so do brittle stars. Is this true? (bristle stars??)
 

chief26

Member
i have a sand starfish and a cholatechip starfish, a turbo and knoch snails. my snails are in my quarentine tank they have cleaned it nicely and quick. I wasnt sure if i could add them to the tank with the starfish. the brittle star i was just curious about. I saw one in the store.
 

alyssia

Active Member
A sand sifting star generally only eats from the sand and they usually die in captivity unless you have a very large tank. CC stars are predators and will eat meaty foods, corals, and I wouldn't put it past them to eat snails and small fish. The brittle star I have eats meaty foods. Some brittles, especially the greens, are known to eat fish.
 

ophiura

Active Member
Originally Posted by alyssia
A sand sifting star generally only eats from the sand and they usually die in captivity unless you have a very large tank. CC stars are predators and will eat meaty foods, corals, and I wouldn't put it past them to eat snails and small fish. The brittle star I have eats meaty foods. Some brittles, especially the greens, are known to eat fish.
Very good answer.
It is impossible to generalize about many of these animals unless we know specifically which is in question.
Other seastars are very very difficult to keep in this hobby because they do not eat meaty foods.
Not all brittlestars are threats to fish and such...but they are highly opportunistic and can employ a variety of methods to eat.
 

biohazard

Member
My green brittle ate my pom pom crab, sally lightfoot crab, and my mandarin goby. I took him back to the fish store yesterday.
 

ophiura

Active Member
DId you see it do this, or did they disappear? Was the brittlestar extremely bloated? What did you feed it?
 

fishguy84

Member
CC stars generally will eat clams and things of that nature, although I've seen them gnawing on the shell of an astrea before. I usually went to the seafood section of the grocery store and bought a live clam to toss in once a week. Make sure it's small enough though, since grocery stores look for nice BIG ones to sell to people and toss small guys away
 

chief26

Member
i feed my stars a clam. didnt think it was going to get it open but it did. now my water is cloudy. what do i do???
 
S

sinner's girl

Guest
my brittles, brown and stupid green, eat shrimp, seaweed, whatever raw seafood I feed them. When sinner gets a seafood package (with raw unseasoned stuff), I steal a few pieces for the stars.
CC love to knock snails off the glass and eat them...saw my old one do this many times.
Some brittles, especially the greens, are known to eat fish.
If a green is kept well fed, will he still try to eat a fish. swf.com sent me a green brittle last year, I thought I was getting a brown like I did last time...I don't have any fish but don't want to wait till the green dies before I can get fish...(don't have lfs that I'd trust to give the star too, and I'm not sending him to certain doom).
CC star will pass up seaweed for shrimp...I once gave him seaweed , then a little while later gave him shrimp (just to see what he'd do) and he past the seaweed out.
I feed stars (all three, green brittle, serpent and cc) shrimp about once a week, cc gets fee seaweed whenever he comes to the top front glass, every few days or so (I don't have any algea in the tank for him to eat).
I had a clam...that died...but I never saw the cc or other stars near him.
I never saw (note I said I never saw, that doesn't mean they didn't...I've had many crabs disappear over the years) my stars eat fish or inverts that were alive, other than the cc eating snails. The serpent ate a CBS shrimp once, (after the CBS ate ten peppermint shrimp) but I'm not sure if it was already dead or not.
 
Top