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Jazzcat

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Two years ago I got a Red Serpent Star based on a recommendation by Aquatic Specialists. It has thrived in my 20g, and is now about 8" across from leg to leg. It has never bothered inverts or fish *except* when anything was dead or near death. It is a voracious detritvore that will really help keep your sandbed clean. IME, they are very hardy. Mine usually stays out of the light, but does come out from time to time to fling himself across the tank on those wild, long legs!

(BTW, avoid the green serpent/brittle starfish like the plague! I've heard only bad about them.)
 

ophiuroid

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Hi,
It is possible that the orange knobby starfish is an Echinaster perhaps E. echinophorus (at least the first link showing this star seems to be something like this species...with the big knobs). The one from FFE looks a tad different, but hard to tell. Perhaps it is something like E. sentus. Anyone know where there starfish originated? These are both Caribbean species...so the identifications may be way off base. I'm not real good with ID's of starfish....prefer the brittlestars myself! Just a little bias
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Here is Echinaster (Othilia) echinophorus (from site: http://www.nhm.org/~tzimmerm/bvi_800/images/echi-i03/06x32p.htm):
06x32s.jpg


It is more knobby than the one's shown by FFE (more like the first link given above)

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Brittlestars!! http://home.att.net/~ophiuroid
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Quillen

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More research should go into a creature before putting them in our tank, even if some research has been done. When it isn't handled properly, the fish suffer and are often unhappy (or the tank owner is from a loss of other fish).
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EmilyB

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Ophiuroid, I can't seem to get a pic at that link, but would sure like to see it.

I am fairly certain the star came from the Phillipines.
 

ophiuroid

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Gosh, this keeps coming up...reader beware...here is another passionate plea for brittlestars!

I would suspect that the reason you hear only bad about them is because only people who have things go wrong with them post to the boards. Few people write in to say- "have a green brittle, hasn't bothered a thing." They only write when something goes wrong. Green brittles are efficient predators which will, if hungry, catch live food...even if it happens to be expensive. They are misleadingly sold as scavengers...but large one's will need more than what they can scavenge to survive, unless there are a lot of dead/sick fish in the system. They must be kept very well fed with shrimp, fish, etc, hopefully provided by us and not the other tank residents! Such predatory events are part of the risk of keeping the "miniature ecosystem" so many strive to have.

I definitely agree! Avoid the green brittles...they should be left in the wild to do what is instinctive. IMO They should not be sold in the aquarium trade...yet the supply and demand remains high. How can this be, if they are such trouble? I still believe most people have no problems with them- just as many people have very different experiences with particular types of fish.

The only reason I feel they should not be sold is that irresponsible reefkeepers will buy them and then toss them when they catch something...or simply because someone said they might catch something. In themselves, they are not terribly expensive, so people often have no trouble tossing them when considering the higher monetary value of other residents in the tank.

We have a responsibility to take care of animals that are harvested from the wild for our enjoyment(which should be a sobering thought), especially when they display behaviors that are no different than those they display in the wild.

Just my (passionate) opinion....

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Brittlestars!! http://home.att.net/~ophiuroid
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ophiuroid

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Hmmm....I have no idea what happened to that image (or to the link!!). Perhaps that person is no longer working there, and their stuff was removed- right when we needed it!

Oh well, here is a fellow German reefer who shows an image of that starfish and then states that he has the species Echinaster echinophorus in his tank.
http://home.t-online.de/home/Baur-Kruppas/juergen2.htm

Anyway, still looking into it an ID....

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Brittlestars!! http://home.att.net/~ophiuroid
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