Starfish or Serpent Star

dfwatson · 03-18-2005, 08:36 AM

Need some advise as to which would be best in my tank. Dont what them to kill my fish. Would like some color if possible and maybe some stirring ability. Any names??

Diver_1298 · 03-18-2005, 07:15 PM

Red banded serpent star. They live in the Gulf of Mexico, have nice color and will eat just about anything. They don't like bright lights but can be coaxed out during the day by offering it some tasty food. So far the 4 that I have in my various tanks have not touched a live fish. It's your choice

I like Starz and I'm sure there will be plenty more opinions...
Jim

minwinn · 03-18-2005, 09:40 PM

I have two sand sifting stars in my tank. They are excellent for keeping the sand stirred but are almost invisible when buried in the sand. They are very, very light colored. I also have a green brittle star. He ate my very slow moving (fat) lawnmower blenny. But I have a very quick blenny now, and the green brittle star hasn't been a problem since.

Birdlady · 03-19-2005, 07:04 AM

Stars are dicey propositions. Supposedly the only 'reef safe' are the BLACK brittle stars,(and some disagree with that even) but, as noted above, people have success with others not eating their livestock. I would stay away from any colored brittle or serpent stars. Definitely have a poor track record for eating fish, snails, bivalves, etc.

Gresham · 03-26-2005, 01:17 AM

[quote author=birdlady link=board=General;num=1111163793;start=0#3 date=03/19/05 at 10:04:23]Stars are dicey propositions. *Supposedly the only 'reef safe' are the BLACK brittle stars,(and some disagree with that even) but, as noted above, people have success with others not eating their livestock. *I would stay away from any colored brittle or serpent stars. *Definitely have a poor track record for eating fish, snails, bivalves, etc.

[/quote]

If you do a search, I did a brittle star post a year or so back. *I totally disagree with BL, there's plenty of good starfish, brittle stars and serpeant stars. *The bad serpeant stars come from the south pacific, and are usually green, yellow, red or orange BUT they look nothing like or even remotely act like a deep water red serpeant from the atlantic that wouldn't harm a single reef inhabitant. *There's plenty of good brittle stars out there, look for my post, or wait for me to compile a new one to sticky

Birdlady · 03-26-2005, 05:55 AM

We did expand the discussion on this a bit here..

http://www.3reef.com/cgi-bin/yabb/Ya...1122;start=6#6

and, as always, I defer to you Gresham for info! Thanks for the clarification and I searched for your thread, but cannot seem to find it. So when you have time, if you can find it , that would be great!

I lost a pair of shrimp a while back, and most people told me it was my brittle star (which I could not believe). And gave me the above advice, that nearly all stars are predatorial. I am glad they are not and look forward to adding based on your recommendations!

It ended up being my splendid dottyback that ate my shrimp, BTW >

Thanks again, for keeping me straight!

Gresham · 03-26-2005, 10:53 AM

Make no mistake, the south pacific serpeant star is HIGHLY preditory

If you had one of them, I wouldn't put any missing fish, loose corals (sem to love loose shrooms and zoas) or missing inverts off the list as possiable killers

I'm sure it wad the dotty though.

The thead may be MIA, but I still have the pics. It'll take me a few days, or a week, I'm purty busy right now.

04-09-2005, 04:04 PM

ALL starfish are predatory, in some sense, with very few exceptions. It's just a question of what they predate on. If you use serpent/brittle stars in a reef tank with a live sand bed, keep in mind they will eat many of the beneficial worms in the sand bed. They will stir the sand themselves, to some extent, but only on the very surface. I, personally, try to avoid them for that reason. I agree that the deepwater atlantic stars are somewhat less predatory (they eat detrital snow *i.e., fish poo* in the ocean, and thus are more like scavengers than the others) They will also get any bits of food that fall between the rocks. BUT, as far as maintaining a live sand bed, they are detrimental to the cause, in my opinion. Instead, i try focusing on maintaining maximal biodiversity of interstitial meiofauna (all the litter critters that live between the grains of substrate). Try trading a cup of sand with other hobbyists, or ordering some "live sand booster" from GARF, or inland aquatics, etc. Also, if you are going that route, avoid sand sifting gobies and linkia starfish, and anything else which sifts sand for a living. Those critters live by cleaning the sand of other things which clean the sand. in the long run, they damage the ecosystem. And any really healthy reef tank is, to some extent, an ecosystem. Just my two cents, for what it's worth....