Green brittle star care

[sheepsour]

I'm new to saltwater and so this is more a hypothetical, "sometime in the next couple years" question, but;

If I were to set up a tank housing a single green brittle star (Ophiarachna incrassata) or *maybe* a pair, how big would it need to be? I've asked at the local fish stores and gotten answers ranging from 10g to 90g! I know they get very large, but they're also pretty sedentary. I live in a studio apartment so the main concern is tank footprint. Do they climb rock or prefer to sit on the sand? Would I be able to get away with a taller rather than wider tank to save space?

 

[pagojoe]

Well, I'm not starfish specialist, although I've kept several species. A species tank for the big green fish eater would be pretty cool. They don't stay out in the open all the time, or even a lot. They will need some hiding places, and will stay at least partially hidden quite a bit of the time. They will come out to eat, though. You don't want to try to keep fish in the tank with them unless you are ready to risk losing the fish. This also probably goes for most crustaceans and even some molluscs. They will readily kill most any kind of shrimp you throw in there within a few days, and you could probably feed them chopped frozen shrimp from the supermarket. I wouldn't try to keep a pair in a ten gallon, but a 90 may be overkill. I suspect you'd be fine with something like a 55 hex, which wouldn't take up all that much floor space. You might even get by with a 30 that had a couple piles of live rock for hiding places, but that would likely be approaching the lower limit. The smaller the tank, the more careful you'd have to be with your water quality. That said, many of the brittle stars can tolerate pretty crappy tank conditions. I don't know how tough the green ones would be, but they're probably not extremely fragile.

Cheers,



Don