ok there are a ton of questions and a lot have been answered and talked about on this thread already, but i will recap things and talk about the new ones.
1. first off 1 chip leg a week is enough for ONE harlequin unless the PAIR is small ( under 1/2inch in length) for a larger PAIR two legs a week will be fine.
2. as for the regeneration of legs in a chip star: one leg, in the right tank with enough food, will take 1 to 3 months to grow back BUT*** most people will not see regrowth in enough time to use the starfish for what we intend (having two or three stars and rotate between them for legs) in most cases the star will just be slowly be cut apart till you feed the remaining star to the harlequin. this is not to discourage someone from doing this because the star will heel its self between cuttings but no regenerate a full leg to be Harvested. * this way still is better, in Mine and may other peoples opinions, then feeding a whole star and having it go to waist because the harly cant eat the whole thing before it dies. whole star feeding can also lead to rotting of the star which affects water quality!!!
3. cutting a leg off the star: a pair of good scissors, Meat scissors that come in mainy knife sets work great, or coral snips work well too.
cut the arm near the central ring * but try not to cut to much of the center. i lost a star once because i cut to much of the center. some people may say its ok but to insure the star lives take as least of the center as possible.
4. lastly I have heard of freezing legs and thawing them before feeding method, it can be done but two things come into play... First the leg is not alive so any part of the leg not consumed by the harlequin within a day or two WILL begin to rot. it takes a harlequin a few days at least even at full adults let alone when they are smaller. Second the harlequin from what ive read has to learn to take the once frozen no longer alive leg. in most cases a harly will not take one right off the bat. So in my opinion this way would not work out as nicely as you may think but maybe over time. better off sticking to the live legs, if u dont have the time to make this method work.
but if u wanted to try this, i might myself just to see what goes on, cut up a Small chip star and try that. the small legs will be eatn faster and have less potential of rotting.
* if anyone trys this method post on it Please! would like to see what happens. this way would cut down on one extra tank or thing to take care of, if it works.
hope this all helps!
