chocolate chip starfish

MattD

In the future, drip acclimate all your livestock. Especially invertebrates, they are particularly sensitive to fluctuations. Good think your star is ok. :D

BTW marbled sea stars are gorgeous, pics don't do them justice. They almost look fake, like the colors are painted on them. My lfs had one, it sold within a day.

Has anyone kept a marbled sea star? I've searched to see whether it would survive in a 10g reef, but most sites only mention the species' max size, never min. tank size. = /


thanks in advance.

Bandit4575`

Will it eat crabs just because or will it eat other food i give it. I like my crabs and i dont want to get a choco star fish if it will just kill my crabs and shrimp

eglavasa240

I've heard they eat crabs, snails, and fish. I found my starfish with my emeralds leg on its tentacle and once i moved the starfish my emerald crab ZOOMED away as fast as possbile. Haven't seen him do anything to my snails. I did catch my starfish corning my green chromi in my tank last week and had to actually pry the starfish off and my fish had completely changed colors when the starfish had him cornered and his eyes got really glazed over so i think his gill was being covered and couldn't breath properly. He swam away as fast as possible and changed back to normal once i moved the starfish. Then today my clown died and my starfish was over the clown starting to harvest the left overs so im not saying don't by a chocolate chip i'm just saying i'm giving up on mine. They're fun to watch but not fun to watch try to eat things. [/code]

Bandit4575`

Mine seems to just stay at the top of the tank with one of his legs out of the water and moves around and does it again.

melo

I have a bunch of hermit crabs and my cc hasn't showed the slightest interest in them. He has tried twice to eat my snails but has failed both times, they retreat to far into their shells. So in my opinion hermit crabs and snails are safe with chocolate chip starfish, my lfs did say they would eat shrimp though, I don't see how they could catch a shrimp

Lupin

Best not to try the shrimps though. No matter the starfish's personalities, they're not safe for other inverts, most especially the reef system.

melo

How about in a FOWLR are shrimp still not safe from chocolate chips? I just don't see how a cc could get a shrimp, I'm sure I'm wrong on this but I would love to add something like a fire shrimp or a cleaner to my 80 gallon. I also have a Red general but I guess the same rules would apply to them as to cc's

Bandit4575`

Does anyone know why it sticks it leg out of the water? It will not go to the bottom to feed

Dave66

How are you feeding it? If you are just dropping food on the top of the water, stars like your chip will station themselves there with arms up. Only way to break them of that is to hydrate (soak) the food in tank water so it'll sink. It'll take a while, though, as it may stay up there for weeks until it learns the food is on the bottom of the tank.

Dave

gem

I have a CC star in my refugium. I wondered why he did that!