Echinaster spinulosus (Brn Sea Star) feeding

[DawgOnIt]

Hi,

My sea star only wants to eat my small snails in the tank. totally rejects clam & oyster i offer. when he was first put in the tank he totally devoured a small dead chum fish I gave him. Since then he just moves away from food I offer.

Any suggestions to help modify his love of my live snails?

Thx

 

[Airwolf75]

It's like trying to keep a baby wildebeast and a full grown lion in the same pen. Is there a food that will keep the lion from eating the hapless wildebeast at some point? Probably not.

 

[DawgOnIt]

Lol ya, well if we could curb the appetite so he only eats say one snail per week that would be ok I suppose. Any food suggestions that Mr. Spinulosus might be more attracted to? I have tried oyster and clam so far. Any feeding techniques that might prompt his eating? Put him in isolation for a bit until he is firmly adjusted to dead food?

I don't want to torture the poor guy and have no problems taking him back to his turtle grass beds near my house, but would like to rehab the fellow if possible.

thx

nice colors in your tank btw!

 

[Airwolf75]

Thanks the tank just turned 1 year old this month.

The thing about sea stars, is each arm is an independantly thinking unit all kinda connected with no real central thinking part. Some consider them to be almost entirely reactionary. So training it will be quite an endeavor due to it's limited abilities.

But since it likes snails, look for snails, or abalone at the fish market. Maybe you can stuff it so much it gets lazy.

 

[DawgOnIt]

lol ya,

well I already took him back to his native turtle grass beds. I'm thinkng maybe if we get a very small one that never really "knows" live prey (if i can use the word rather loosely), maybe we can work with that. He's such a pretty sea star and loves to be up top by the light where he's easy to see. I counted up the damage on my blue hermits, and I think he ate about 9 of them too! lol.

one thing I could try on the next one would be to stuff meat in an empty shell and feed him every couple days with that, haha. Will see.