Chocolate Chip Starfish

[9Tailfox]

I was wondering what the diet of a Chocolate Chip Starfish was, I'm having trouble locating more information on them. Do they need to scavenge or hunt their own food or can they be fed frozen food? Would the starfish consume, or have a negative impact on the creatures in a fuge, such as any pods for the main tank? Also how much space do they need and would they harm each other?

I ask because I'm in the planning stages of a nano and I really want a Harlequin Shrimp pair in it. So I was thinking to keep the starfish in a separate tank or maybe in a fuge so as to harvest legs.

 

[charlesr1958]

Such starfish are "meat" eaters. Clams or any other small meaty food that they can trap underneath themselves will be taken. To feed these starfish is quite easy as all you need to do is put a small cube of clam or shrimp meat under or very near them. Pods would be safe as they should be too small.

Chuck

 

[Skipper J]

I have one and the only food I add to the tank is plankton and mysis shrimp. The starfish is thriving and he's always climbing all over everything and sticking his arms out of the water.

 

[ajbeck78]

Just so you know I had a chocolate chip starfish in my tank that was a killer. It ate all my snails and anything else it could find. It got huge and I eventally brought it back to the LFS and they said it was the biggest one they had ever seen. Dont have inverts if you plan on getting one.

 

[julianp]

I let mine scavenge around the tank and then target feed it scallops, shrimp and squid around once or twice per week. I usually wait until it is on the glass somewhere close to the front of the canopy. Then, I basically just put a cube of food gently under one of it's arms. It immediately centers it's "mouth" over it and spends the next 24 hours or so digesting it. I try to feed when it is on the glass because it is very interesting to watch the digestive process... as gross as that sounds... haha

 

[julianp]

In case anyone runs into this thread interested in choc. chips, here are two videos of mine ("Cookie") eating a piece of krill. The first is immediately after he crawled over it and the second is the beginning of the digestive process. If you watch closely, you can see him everting his stomach.

My porcupine puffer kept trying to get in on the action and was being a camera hog so it made taking these videos difficult...

http://amity.be/tank_movies/cookie1.mov

http://amity.be/tank_movies/cookie1.mov

-Julian