Clean Up Crew Afterthoughts

[M.Dandaneau]

My computer has been sick for a few days, leaving my sick little brain to incubate by itself, thus this stray thought to inflect on you all about things we often take way too much for granted......ever wonder why we worry about the fish (dollars? hmmmmmmmmmmmm) and then go straight to the LR (more dollars?), with ever thinking about the little behind the scenes players?

We have two "sandsifter" starfish in one of our tanks that do an admirable job keeping the substrate clean of detritus and left over fish fish food, not to mention re-cycled fish food (yuk, eh? **grin**).......each time the fish are fed, they pop out of the sand and start scrambling (actually, they can haul pseudopodia when they want to, eh?) for small pieces of shrimp, etc.

Then I began to notice that every so often, they popped out for no apparent reason and began scaling the front wall of the tank.....eventually, I figured out they were hungry and letting me know that they didn't appreciate the "out of sight, out of mind" attitude, and began giving them small, individual extras.
Now they scale the glass on a regular basis......demanding little suckers.
Likewise, the sea urchins (LS and common pink) do the same thing, not awfully surprising, as they are relatives, but they carry the begging one step further....when they reach the top, they'll release about half their little suction tube-feet and bend over backwards, with their mouths pointed out of the water and those little teeth opening and closing (do you think it could actually be saying "feed me?") until I drop a shrimp shell that I've peeled of so the fish can get the prime fillet on them, which promptly gets munched into nothingness.

The kicker.....this is pretty smart for critters that we usually ignore, eh? Now, add in the fact that they don't have a brain, as such.

Smile,
Mike

[Tarasco1]

Hmmm... I have a sand sifting star that will occasionally make a trek up the glass, never thought that it had to do with hunger. He does a really good job with my substrate as well. Gonna have to give him some little extras from now on.