Harlequin Shrimp

Tomarrow am picking up a pair of Harlequin shrimp just in from Hawaii from LFS.

While I am getting them primarily to help combat an ongoing asterina star problem...am concerned about future feeding.

I really don't want a choclate chip star or any other for that matter, wandering around in my tank.

Does the starfish they feed on have to be alive?

Can I just keep one in sump/ or freezer, and feed them "pieces" now and then. If so, how much?...was told they only need to eat about once a month - - does not sound like much.


Any thoughts?

 

Cool. Are you getting a mated pair because if you don't, they might fight.

Sorry to say but they will only eat live starfish. I only fed my mated pair about once a month.

 

Some people 'ive heard' have used frozen legs of a star...im not sure I'd do this though...they dont eat that fast. <You can try and just use smaller pieces and see if they go for it.

Congrats ! I want another one, but for a different tank I like pistol and goby combos....so I'll have to stay away from those for my next tank.

 

You can feed them frozen/dead Sea Stars! They will need to be fed one every couple weeks to survive as a reliable source has told me from one of the pet shops that I deal with! They eat one leg at a time and work their way around ending up at the center of the star. They don't take too long to devour the star either!

 

Trust me, that starfish won't be wandering around your tank. As soon as I dropped the choc. chip starfish in my fully loaded reef tank, the shrimp were on it. Because they use venom to keep their prey alive (in suspended animation) while they eat, I'm inclined to believe that they will not readily accept long dead, frozen food, if they accept it at all. After my shrimp venomated their prey, they would flip the star over, drag it into their burrow and begin eating one leg at a time over a week's time. They never left their burrow until the starfish was completely gone.

 

^^^+1 I tried to flip my CC over when my harlequin had it...and it always flipped it back over. In fact, it felt threatened and would drag it farther to the back of the tank

 

Shrimp delayed a day...LFS says he only sells mated pairs...so hopefully will get tomorrow. Will get a chocolate chip when I pick them up. Hopefully they will wander about and eat my asterinas for appetizers...

Eye Candy:

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They might not be interested in eating as soon as they're introduced to your tank so unless you have a place to hold that choc. chip star for a little while, I would wait to buy it. Like many other shrimp that we put in our systems, harlequins will sometimes hide out and molt as a stress/acclimation reaction to being introduced to a tank.

 

Good advice...will do.

 

I was considering getting one of these also. I figured one chocolate chip star every two weeks would be kind of pricey. 10 bucks a week I assume. I thought of keeping a star in my fuge chopping pieces off of it and feeding it, but thought it wouldn't be enough to give the shrimp and the star wouldn't regenerate fast enough to produce a constant supply.

I saw one at my LFS. It was pretty small about an inch in size. There was a live star in there, running around the tank with the shrimp on it as it was being devoured. I thought it was neat, yet cruel