star fish id?????

[reelemin]

any body know what kind of giant starfish this is???hes about 13-15 inchs around..i dont know what kind or what to FEED him..he was so big he didnt even fit in a 5 gallon bucket i had to bring him home in a big cooler..

 

[spanko]

Looks like a Cushion Starfish.

 

[meowzer]

What did you do get it from the beach or something??

 

[anjiro]

It looks like a reticulated star to me... which is a cushion star.... Oreaster reticulatus.

 

[reelemin]

yes i took him home from the beach..thanks i will do some reserch on what they eat..

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by reelemin
http:///forum/post/3004730
yes i took him home from the beach..thanks i will do some reserch on what they eat..

Please don't get mad at me...
It is beautiful and way too big for your tank. Why don't you take it back to his home and let him go.

 

[reelemin]

ya your right i probaly will...theres a school that has a very very very large lagoon and i might donate him to them ..

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by reelemin
http:///forum/post/3004744
ya your right i probaly will...theres a school that has a very very very large lagoon and i might donate him to them ..
Hey, I just noticed the worm post. Could your star be infested, and that is why such a large star was close enough to the beach to be caught?

 

[reelemin]

he wasnt the only one there there were many of them..i acutaly took him of a wreck while diving..in about 30-35ft of water..

 

[salami trigger]

That's awesome!
Be careful tho...here on the west coast of Florida pretty big fine if you get caught taking live animals from the beach.

 

[flower]

Could the worms be a good thing?

 

[reelemin]

i never thought about not being able to take them????i will have to check the laws..

 

[ophiura]

This is Oreaster reticulatus. Size is normal.
I strongly discourage collecting stars without research - it is quite predatory.
And moreso because I don't recommend people releasing things back into the wild that are now possibly exposed to, for example, Indo Pacific live rock. May not be the case here but definitely please reconsider taking things. It can be a legal issue, but also just a case of getting something you may not want in the future.
This is also more of a open "seagrass" seastar and not so much a reef seastar. So the tank is not quite the right "habitat" in that regard either.