Orange Linkia food

[paullondon]

It's unconfirmed for orange linckia however we've seen evidence for the blue variations.

Which is why I've asked if anybody was willing to give it a shot.

I did for 2 weeks now. My Orange Linkia is not eating asterina stars, she passes over them...
I can feed the Orange Linkia anything, but she always responds to a brine shrimp mash with marine pellets, so do my hydroids... and zoas lol
My linkia is 1/2" bigger since I feed her every day and she is going through a rough time, I can't find the rascal but someone is taking chunks out of her legs in the night... might be a torch coral, a snail, crabs? She is really fast in recovering, it takes about 12 hours and every wound she has is healed. Yesterday a snail dropped a rock with zoas on her... she was fine but got a bit scratched trying to get out from underneath the rock, she ate well and the tissue is healing fast but you can still see marks... she looks like Rambo I will glue the corals when I decide where I want them, but until then she has to cope with tough life... The regeneration abilities are amazing on this animals.
So yeah, they eat a lot and they can be spot fed every day with prepared food but I couldn't make her eat asterinas... or hydroids.

 

[gogo7]

hey paul, sorry to hear about your starfish getting banged about.
i had a scare a week ago. my linckia sat under the out flow from the hob for a couple of days, then it had a pore open up on one of its legs. for about twelve hours it oozed a white milky substance. the pore looked like an erupting volcano. i thought it was going to have a bad day and got worried. it wouldn't eat. showing no interest in the pellets i've been feeding it.
well the pore closed up and i cannot even tell which leg it was. i am not convinced it was a spawning moment, but it was around the time that my gobies and pistols let out their babies, so my attention was not on the starfish. in hindsight, the vernal equinox was this week and i'm almost thinking it was a spawn moment. but not convinced.
anyways, everything is back to normal and my star had a feed last night.
let me know if this might be what you are experiencing.

 

[paullondon]

hey paul, sorry to hear about your starfish getting banged about.
i had a scare a week ago. my linckia sat under the out flow from the hob for a couple of days, then it had a pore open up on one of its legs. for about twelve hours it oozed a white milky substance. the pore looked like an erupting volcano. i thought it was going to have a bad day and got worried. it wouldn't eat. showing no interest in the pellets i've been feeding it.
well the pore closed up and i cannot even tell which leg it was. i am not convinced it was a spawning moment, but it was around the time that my gobies and pistols let out their babies, so my attention was not on the starfish. in hindsight, the vernal equinox was this week and i'm almost thinking it was a spawn moment. but not convinced.
anyways, everything is back to normal and my star had a feed last night.
let me know if this might be what you are experiencing.

My Linkia had the open pore too and white stuff (like fine spray) was coming out of it. I had no idea the vernal equinox has anything to do and I didn't pay attention to anything because Easter was coming
The missing chunk I am talking about is close to the end of one leg and it clearly looked like some was feasting on it, this was separate from the open pore... which came later that week. I was getting ready to take a picture when I came back from work that afternoon but the wound was completely recovered and by the next day just small mark visible. I was looking at my Linkia today and she was like a new star lol
I m so curious now, I want to make a tank only for sea stars and study everything I can about them... in detail...
I will mark everything I see in the calendar and observe if it's a repetitive pattern...

 

[paullondon]

Just want to drop in and say, Glad i was given this link to the thread. Some great facts and reads on here. Will be glad to add some good pics of my different stars eating.

That sounds wonderful! I am eager to learn as much as I can about Linkia and different stars. They are wonderful gorgeous animals.

 

[paullondon]

Orange Linkia on feeding schedule

Orange Linkia on feeding schedule

I fed my Orange Linkia every night after 11:30 pm and it did accept two feedings one after another. I also observed that the lights should be off for at least 3 hours before attempting to feed the star but this is not a requirement, it will just improve the feeding response.

Here some pictures from April 7,8 and 17 2015

The Orange Linkia is pushing all the food towards its stomach with her tubefeet:

My fish and nassarius snails will pick food from the sea star so for 45 minutes I pretty much have to watch and push the snails away... the nassarius will go up the glass and push the star off the glass....

More eating...

Today I observed a new behavior. After everting the stomach and eating for 45 min the sea star started to push the leftovers inside her mouth with her tubefeet. A very interesting behavior I never noticed so far.

This is all I have for now, but I will keep observing the star and try to get some materials from the University to study its behavior more closely.

 

[gogo7]

that's good paul... good to see your star is still at it.
i was a little concerned about my star for a while, so i bought a nice piece of dirty live rock and put it in the dt...three different sponges on it. the star went straight for it. it hasn't left the piece for a few days, so it's definitely eating something that's living on it. top to bottom.

i think an occasional piece of new live rock could help sustain a star through non feeding times. it's been over a week since my star has accepted some pellets.
i'll keep trying new foods and let you know of successes.

it seems that there are a lot of orange linckias in the lfs in my kneck of the woods.
keeping this thread alive could save a few stars..

 

[paullondon]

Diatoms? Are they eating diatoms?

 

[gogo7]

Diatoms? Are they eating diatoms?

i'm not sure paul... there's alot of stuff growing on the rock, a couple of aiptasia, some clear nasty anemones that aren't aiptasia, vermetid snails, different sponges and lots of bacteria laden mulm.
the star has gone walk about tonight, and looks good.
i'm not sure about diatoms, but i'm gonna look into it. i'll scope some scrapings from the rock and see whats there.

 

[paullondon]

How us your linkia guys? I truly believe this starts are amazing creatures... I totally neglected my tank for months and everything survived and adapted to the harsh conditions of alkalinity 6.3 and Ca under 250... Eventually I noticed there linkia fading so I cleaned up everything, slowly balancing the chemistry and the star has started to eat and got plumped again... So now I know for sure it can take a lot of beating... But hey... still accepting food and growing... after almost a year...