Difficult inhabitants

Richard DeChamplain · #1 02/03/2006, 12:18 AM

Dear sirs;

I am about two weeks from a major debulking. I do not want to loose this animal. Please; only respond if you are serious.

Please do not assume that ANYBODY can do this now.....
This is a fluke! Yes, I have a nice tank . But I did not buy this animal. This animal came in as a new intro, to my local fish store, from a new wholesaler, and, when it came in 4 years ago, they recognised the free bonus item and called me. We placed it in my tank within 5 hours. It made it and has done well. No special treatment.

There have been many criniod only tanks in public/research facilities with essentially no success!!!!

I have very little scientific recordings other than tank perameters,feeding schedule,lighting, moon,tide pattern, and of coarse behavior pattern

Pandora · #2 02/03/2006, 12:58 PM

You kept a crinoid for 4 years? Wow! That's a major accomplishment. With a 600 gal, your tank probably does rival those of some public aquariums. I don't have any suggestions since I have zero experience with them and know few people who have. I think Mutagen also had one for several years, and kept it alive by fluke. I do have a question... do you run a fuge? Any idea what it's been able to eat? Just curious, I have no interests in trying to keep one. And good luck, I hope it makes it through the debulking, would be a shame.

Julio · #3 02/03/2006, 03:35 PM

Some scientist think that there is some sort of symbiosis goign on with them and Lionfish, with the lionfish feeding the star. YOu can target feed them meaty foods and see how that goes. But they sure are difficult to keep alive, but they sure are beautiful.

Travis L. Stevens · #4 02/03/2006, 03:47 PM

Care to elaborate a little more on that Julio? That's really got my interest now.

Julio · #5 02/03/2006, 04:03 PM

Well, they believe the stars are feeding off a chemical slime coming off the fish's body or the fish's waste by product.

Travis L. Stevens · #6 02/03/2006, 04:08 PM

Wow! So, if it is true, then you could pretty much have a symbiosis tank. One corner has a large basket star and a lionfish and the other corner has a nice anemone and a pair of clownfish.

Seriously, that is really neat. Where are you getting your information from? Word of mouth or a citable source?

Julio · #7 02/03/2006, 09:53 PM

It was a Journal one of my employees was showing me from one of his college courses.

Richard DeChamplain · #8 02/04/2006, 10:41 AM

Thanks. I donot run a fuge in the classical sense. But the tank has a fair amount of plankton of its own. almost every morning before lights on you can detect a swarm of newly hatched crustacean larva or other micro fauna, in addition to the regular population of rotifers and copepods. I have a probably 40 pepermint shrimp 2 breeding pairs of coral banded shrimp and several cleaner shrimp all established for 2 or more years. I do occasionally add a slurry of spray dried marine phytoplankton to the water column.

When I do this I will ussually add 1 tsp to a blender 1/2 full of tank water and blend for 1 aprox 30 sec and pour this directly into the main tank in a high flow area. I will ussually do this 3x a week for maybe two weeks . Then I may wait 1 or two months before I do it again.

As far as a symbiotic relationship, I have no lions.

It does not appear that this crioniod eats or is capable of eating meaty foods. His typical activity is to hang out in an area that has moderate flow with a small area. for instance he will find a passage hole where waterpasses thru the rock structure and he will extend his arms in an attempt to fill the whole(esp as the lights dim and at night) forming his arms as if they were a net or a fine sieve.

billsreef · #9 02/04/2006, 11:41 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Julio
Some scientist think that there is some sort of symbiosis goign on with them and Lionfish, with the lionfish feeding the star. YOu can target feed them meaty foods and see how that goes. But they sure are difficult to keep alive, but they sure are beautiful.

That is going to be very species specific thing. i.e. just one or a couple of species of criniod. Kind of like anemones that host clownfish, only a mere few species out of thousands do

Youngsilver · #10 02/14/2006, 05:33 AM

Any news on this beautiful creature?

Richard DeChamplain · #11 02/14/2006, 07:25 AM

won't start debulking until weekend of 25th. I have been feeding spray dried phyto this and last week . Hopefully this will help.
Thanx

Pandora · #12 02/14/2006, 09:32 AM

I wish I lived closer to SC, I saw pics of your beautiful tank and wish I could see it in real life (and probably take advantage of some of the debulking leftovers...hehe).

Tu Ku · #13 02/14/2006, 09:30 PM

The experience that I have with my own crinoids suggest that they need ample protein in zooplankton forms. I find that treating them like a dendronepthea is about the best course. Stir some sand once in a while and feed them some detritus. And of course DT's live phytoplankton...of course. I keep two dwarf lions on my reef so maybe that is why they do so well with me, but I've kept a couple of crinoids for over a year now.

jackson vile · #14 02/19/2006, 09:13 PM

It is obvious to me that they relay on zooplankton not phyoto.

Do you see it's lims? What do you think it does with those lims? Filter feeder much like a tube worm.

For some reason zooplankton feeding is something that people can just not grasp, I don't understand why.

Get a rotifer colony and call it a day