Originally posted by
ets_angel
You don't ALWAYS have to spot feed starfish. They are scavengers and that's what they will do, scavenge for food. All four of mine have never been spot feed and are all growing and are doing quite well.
I am sorry, I disagree. And I suspect various oystermen around the world would disagree.
Though some of this argument is semantics, because, of course, we are not throwing in live food for these guys. It is a matter of how much do you feed the tank...do you feed just enough for the fish, or do you insure some stuff hits the ground. If you make sure that stuff hits the ground in roughly the area the stars are in, well, you are basically spot feeding these guys. That's all this is about. Otherwise, if they are just cleaning up fish waste and stray flakes, that is a different definition (though the one I think generally used in the hobby).
FWIW, Seastars and brittle/serpentstars are not all simple scavengers of the latter type, adapted to get by on little bits here and there. In the wild, OK, this may be so...because there is a lot more available. But many people either do not feed their tanks enough or have too many clean up crew animals to insure everything gets enough. The green brittlestar, for example, is a known predator in the wild, and, I have heard of nearly every brittle/serpentstar in the trade implicated in a predatory attack on some tank mate.
Brittlestars and seastars are also very different...those that you have, chocolate chips and the african red are generally considered to be predatory. They will certainly take part in feeding on dead fish, prepared foods, etc, but they will also happily chow down on various bivalves, snails, and other stars, etc. if they are hungry.
Linckia species seastars, as well as Fromia (the 'reef safe' seastars) are in no way scavengers and quite commonly die of starvation. I would argue more die of starvation than actually survive one year. There are many highly specialized feeders that would starve in many tanks.
By all means, if you don't want to feed your stars anything else, don't do so. If you have kept them a year, and they have grown significantly, then I will agree they are fine. Most do take about a year to starve to death, so this is the key time frame. Indeed, many non reef safe stars kept with predators do quite well, because predators are quite messy feeders.
But not all species are simple scavengers, able to get by with a flake here and there. Large animals may not get enough food this way. If you feel the animal is growing, then don't feed it. But also don't be surprised if anything (snails, shrimp, small fish, polyps, etc) goes missing. This is true of the non reef safe seastars, the green brittlestar, and perhaps other brittle/serpentstars. Spot feeding will not insure that they will not catch and eat something, but it might help. These animals will not allow themselves to starve to death if they can avoid it.
Would it stress her to move the rocks she is hiding under in order to spot feed, or is she better off being left alone to scavenge--so long as the limbs i do see continue to be getting larger?
