Crinoids

[zuzecawi]

Okay... lets keep the flames to a minimum here, and the facts to the max...

Anybody willing to share THEIR OWN experience with these critters? Good, bad, whatever.

By your own experience, I mean, something you, yourself, have owned or witnessed first hand, not "Well I read in this book and heard about this other reefers brothers sons girlfriends dad who had one and it fell apart and died but then it sprang out of death and became a seasnake" type stories.

Thanks to all

 

[iamwhatiam52]

How dare you!

How dare you!

How dare you ask about crinoids?

Haven't you been paying attention?

Well, my crinoid has not been paying attention for the last 5 months either. While 5 months is not long term success, it looks fine, has taken up residence on a coral near an overflow, and is responsive to food in the water. I don't know what if anything I am doing right, but I do feed a variety of tiny foods including frozen cyclopeez, rotifers and phyto. Maybe the crinoid gets the nutrition it needs because I have a DIRTY tank. I overfeed, overstock, my parameters stink and my rock is long overdue for the turkey baster treatment. The Ecosystem/Miracl mud sump is full of teeny critters.

Some also say basket stars are difficult to keep, but mine is doing well after a year.

I am NOT, NOT, NOT an experienced or knowledgable reefer. Just lucky I guess.

Bring on the blowtorches.

 

[zuzecawi]

Nice basket star and crinoid. Well, there's a yellow/red crinoid at the local LFS that has been there for literally years. I've seen it for at least two years now, and that's how long I've been going there! The owner says it's been there for a long time, I can't remember how long he said, but a long time. I know what I've seen though. His is pretty big now, it lives in a stand of staghorn. He feeds his phyto and he feeds the tank cyclopeeze among other things. I have read differing accounts, some of these apparently do live quite a while, some don't. Nothing new there. Just got interested and thought I'd see if anybody has any first hand experience. I find it amusing that people are real quick to jump on the "oh my, don't do that" wagon when they've no real experience. If we all listened to that, nobody would keep SPS these days. When I first started reefing, there weren't reef tanks... it was dead bleached coral, monthly copper, and lionfish. Far cry from today.

On a side note, how do you like the miracle mud?

 

[zuzecawi]

http://www.nova.edu/ocean/messing/crinoids/10 Crinoid diets.html

Looks like you may be right, having a dirty tank would be of use with these creatures.

 

[zuzecawi]

http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/1296/1296_9.html

Another interesting crinoid article.

 

[iamwhatiam52]

I've no idea if the mud does anything at all since this is the only tank I have kept.
I just know my tank seems to work, although coral growth is very slow.

 

[matter1331]

Both of the people I know that keep them have had theirs for roughly a year and claim the key to success is feeding lots of different sized foods.

 

[iamwhatiam52]

I suspect it is not the variety of food that increases the chances of survival, but the chance that one of the many is the right one.

 

[mar-y-sol]

I had two and they both fell apart in about two weeks. They are extremely nice if you can keep them alive.

 

[zuzecawi]

Well, I think I throw some credence to the different sizes theory as well, looking at the study on what was found in their digestive tracts, they have a pretty wide variety of sizes of food there. For a while it was thought they didn't eat anything larger than the spicule down which food usually travels, but larger particles have been observed being eaten, usually by the arm curling in and directly depositing the item into the mouth instead of the usual method, where by the food items run down the spicules into the mouth. I found an article about a worm which is a parasite on these animals, it inserts its probuscis into the spicule and sucks the food right out before it gets a chance to hit the crinoids mouth. Crafty suckers!!!

 

[matter1331]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9353590#post9353590 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by iamwhatiam52
I suspect it is not the variety of food that increases the chances of survival, but the chance that one of the many is the right one.

That was my point. Of the foods I listed, each is of a different size.

 

[zuzecawi]

I'm not sure I agree with the one of many theory, seeing as there were many different items found in their gut in study. More like, a combination of the right items and a variety wide enough to allow rejection of inappropriate items. I don't believe that phyto alone or rotifers alone would be sufficient to keep these alive AND thriving, but the combination of rotis, phyto, marine micro plankton, and detritus allow for a healthy animal. Which, is, in effect, what is happening in the apparently successful keeping of these.