How to keep a basket star?

[Drachs]

I ended up with a basket star from my Tampa Bay Saltwater grab bag. I wouldn't buy one on purpose because I have heard how difficult they are, but now that he's here I'd like to give him a shot.

Anybody know anything about keeping them?

I discovered tonight that he won't come out if my LED nightlights are on.

I've tried feeding him slurry and defrosted gut loaded brine shrimp but it's hard to tell if he reacted or not.

 

[Jens Kallmeyer]

HI Drachs

I had one for about a year, then I had to sell my tank because I left the Us and went back to Germany. During that time it grew quite well, from about 4 to 8 inches, but I kept it in a tank with only very peaceful tankmates and many non-photosynthetic corals. If you've got fishes that like to nip on corals or a pure SPS tank with ultra-high flow, then I don't see much of a chance for long term survival.
These animals hide during the day and only come out at night. It may take a few days (nights) to find the right spot, at least for mine. They still like to wander around every once in a while, so make sure that all pump intakes etc. are well covered.
Although they will not open in bright light, they may eventually adapt to slightly earlier feeding times, i.e. when the blue lights are still on.
As I did feed my non-photosynthetic corals several times during day and night, the basket star may have gotten some food, but it really went crazy when I fed the fishes larger pieces, e.g. frozen Artemia, Mysis, Krill. It is absolutely amazing what size of chunks basketstars can handle, this is completely different to feather stars, which only feed on very fine particles. I only target fed my basket star once or twice a week, just a few mysis into the arms, that's it.
Contrary to feather stars, I think that basket stars are actually easy to keep, given the right tank environment and pieceful tankmates.

Good luck

Jens

 

[MCsaxmaster]

I might try cyclopeeze, rotifers, and maybe baby brine shrimp as a first stab. These guys feed exclusively at night. They also need a lot of food to maintain themselves and tropical ones like these tend to consume almost entirely itty bitty copepods. Cyclopeeze and baby brine shrimp might be on the large size for it, but worth a try I think. Lots of small copepods would be the thing to try, if it were practical. Rotifers are probably a reasonable substitue.

I'm not sure of a good recommendation on getting food into it, even if you do find food that it will accept. You could try target feeding by gently pipetting food into its tentacles, though I'm not sure how well that will work or if it would get enough to eat. The most ideal option, just loading a heck of a lot of plankton into the water column for it to catch, is probably unrealistic without megga filtration to take care of the waste.

Unfortunately, because of the difficult nature of keeping these guys fed, almost no on has had any success with them. I'd try the recommendations above though, and keep your fingers crossed.

Chris

 

[danfrith]

What do you think would work better Harpacticoid or Calanoid copepods?

 

[MCsaxmaster]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12548797#post12548797 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by danfrith
What do you think would work better Harpacticoid or Calanoid copepods?

Probably harpacticoid, since that is probably what they actually eat, but small calanoid copepods would probably be fine. These guys are much less specialized than crinoids, for example. Just having an appropriate size range is a biggie. The problem will probably be more about getting enough food into them than finding food they will accept.

 

[Drachs]

Last night he spread out real good. What I did to feed him was I took a frozen block of phyto enriched brine shrimp and waved it around near his tenticles so they got blown into him.

I think it worked, because I could see him curling up his arms and taking them under his body one at a time, but in the dark I couldn't see the food well enough to confirm that he had caught it.

I'm pretty confident that the behaivore was the result of him catching some of the food because I didn't see him move the tenticles very often when I wasn't feeding him.

 

[BeanAnimal]

You will want to contact Chuck Stotelmeyer

He has several and has a lot of insight on how to keep them alive. They are very delicate and very picky. They will reject food if it is not exactly the correct size, they also do not like food that has been damaged (I.E. frozen). He put on a very good presentation here at our club meeting a few months back.

The folks at Reef Nutrition will be of great help also, Chuck uses their products (LOTS of their products!).

Bean