Sea stars (brittle to be exact)

[Ronald]

Hi Anthony, I enjoyed the sea star article, and the timing couldn't have been better. I have a new development in my 18 month old reef. I have had 2 Ophiuroid sea stars (reddish color) for over a year and now I see several (about 3?) tiny sea stars that are identical morphologically. I think my Ophiuroids have reproduced! The question is how or can I keep the babies alive? They are about dime sized and not yet colored. I thought of seperatng them but they are so delicate, I am sure they would die. My water parameters are good temp 80, ca 360, dKh 9.9, mag 1250, pH 8.15-8.3, phosphate near zero, nitrate 2.5, nitrites zero. I have a purple tang, Gamma loreta, Psuedochromis fridmani, 3 pajama cardinals (sphaermia something I think), 2 perculla clowns one red legged hermit crab, several Collinista snails and 2-3 Astrea survivors. Coral includes 2 large euphyllia, a bubble coral, a large xenia colony, a trachophyllia, calaustrea sp, several zoanthids and couple of porites. The tank is 75g with 30g refugium and euroreef protein skimmer.

Thanks.

Ron

[M.Dandaneau]

Congrats on a well written and thought out article.

While this entire site is reef oriented, I usually only haunt the FO and FOWLR forums because I'm not a reefer, in the commonly accepted sense.

I keep sea stars in all of my tanks, but none are considered scavengers and each is target fed daily, if not several times daily, as are all of the other inhabitants of my tanks that reside with the fish, crabs, shrimp and snails.



Mike

[Anthony Calfo]

Cheers Ron/Mike,

Thanks for the kind words my friends. Although my first book was on coral farming, my passion for our aquarium hobby, as with many folks, really is broad (garden ponds, freshwater fishes, SW fishes, etc.). I do expect to continue to write on a wide range of topics in the future as long as I have something useful to share and someone cares to read/contemplate it :)


For Rons baby starfish, I suspect the best place for them is to leave them exactly where they are, undistrurbed. If the parentsand tank conditions were cared for well enough to induce the successful event, I wont be surprised if the babies can grow out supported in kind (without isolating them).

Do send some pics when/if you can of the babies! :)

Kudos.

Anthony

[Ronald]

I lost one (just cleaning a small powerhead for my refugium. It was either stuck inside or hiding there.) I have the body and will save it for a proper ceremony :( . I hope to be more careful about this but I saw no way to avoid it. I hope the others survive. I will photograph if possible, I know there were at least 3.

Ron

[M.Dandaneau]

While sea stars are unfairly relegated to the "scavenger" category, some of these little guys give birth to live young!

Mike

[Anthony Calfo]

There are some nifty tricks for guarding the intake of a power head, power filter, etc. without unduly increasing maintenance needs or water flow.

A bio-ball on the intake is a great one... very coarse and hardly effects flow at all while still protecting fishes, snails, etc. To clean it, take the bio-ball out and bounc it off of a hard surface (seriously.. its a hoot, and cleans it by the force of impact).

You can use many other obvious prefilters like a coarse foam block (as from Aquaclear power filters).

Ultimately though... this is but one of the many reasons why power heads are very poor devices for creating water flow in the aquarium. I have an article suggesting an alternative posted on Wetwebmedia.com called "Goodbye powerheads... closed loop manifold". Do check it out if you like... go to the index page and use the google search tool to find this article and so many other articles and FAQs by various folks on aquatic science.

best regards,

Anthony

[Ronald]

Thanks for the reply. I am geared up to eliminate power heads with a second pump and a scwd device. I have 2 overflows (not drilled because I originally was just going to keep fish! I had no idea how fun this hobby was.

I have 2 remaining (at least) babies and if I can stay awake long enough will try to photograph them tonight.

Thanks again. Ron