feather star

hi everyone I've been away for awhile cause you guys are all so helpful i had no problems what so ever. everything has tripled in size in my tank in the past year i must be doing things right. my question is has anyone ever had luck with feather stars? i got one real cheap from my lfs. what is the best filter food for them?

 

They are filter feeders so they'll require the appropriate foods. They have an almost zero percent chance at long time survival in tanks like ours.

Good luck.

 

JUST PHISH took the words right out of my mouth!!!! Success rate is non existent! You are best to research the particular fish etc. before you buy to ensure your success as well as that of the livestock you purchase.
Unfortunately, many reef organisms have a very specific diet or husbandry requirements that we can not replicate, therefore the survival rate of these organisms is slim to none. Some of these are but not limited to , Feather Stars, Goniopora, many Nudibranches, Rock Beauty Angel etc.!
I would see if you could return it to the pet shop and get something else!!!!

 

i paid ten buck for it so im not worried if i loose it. and i did reasearch it as i do with any thing i was just wondering if anyone else kept one.

 

Not for nothing, but somehow I would think that if you researched the item before you purchased the knowledge you gained would have included what it feeds on and it's survival chances in closed systems. You don't know either.

But hey at least it was cheap right? Here we go with that debate again. Hopefully your path never crosses another's who values your life cheap enough to sacrifice with nothing more than a shrug.

Such a shame.

 

yea well i keep 3 diff type of clowns together 2 of each perculas, tomatos, and maroons all in a 75 thats not suppose to be possable but its worked for 1 year. ive kept both salt and fresh since i was about ten now im forty and for what books say there is always someone who has tried to keep or do something diff with sucsess. well im sorry i ever came back on here. [Let's leave the personal attacks out of this please]

 

Not for nothing but many people have experimented with feather stars and with keeping different species of clowns in the same fishtank and the general consensus is that it doesn't work long term. I do not consider 1 year to be long term. I tried to keep a basket star in a 55 gallon tank before I knew better and it didn't last more than a few months because I was unable to keep it fed.

 

here i found this post at a diff site. Despite all those problems, it *is* possible to keep one of these animals in an aquarium -- I must admit that I have one (Himerometra). However, I must also admit that I consider myself an above average aquarist, and I have constant access to foods (such as invertebrate larvae) that few aquarists would. Despite that, I am not currently providing my star with any of those foods -- it's is surviving (and regrowing all the arms damaged during shipment) in my refugium sump. The animal has attached itself to the "spraybar" the delivers water from the tank to the sump, and simply spreads it's arms into the flow generated from that. This tank has a sandbed in the aquarium, as well as one in the sump, there is also an in-tank refugium (from Inland Aquatics) complete with thier detritivore kits and live sand, and the sump was stocked with live sand that I collected myself in various places. I have a *lot* of sand fauna and there is a constant supply of worm larvae, rotifers and protozoans in the aquarium from those sources. In addition, I feed the tank heavily with enriched brine nauplii and phytoplankton (among other things), and also feed rotifers, copepod and various invertebrate larval cultures when I have excess. I have not had the star for very long, but it has shown significant growth in the time that I have had it, so I suspect that it will do fine -- of course, I'm prepared to start specifically target feeding it invertebrate larvae in a separate container if the animal shows signs that it is not getting enough food at some point.

 

Great info. Please keep us updated on how the starfish does!

 

Any updates on the feather star?