Sea Serpents

[baloutang]

I have 2 sea serpents in my tank for about 6 months, I've never directly fed them, but I'm assume they eat when I feed the tank which is often.
My question is that i've noticed lately that both of them are very sluggish and slow moving. Prior to this they were quite quick moving and active. They don't appear small in size (ie. starving), but I don't know for sure. They both like to hang out together and I mean literally, one entwined with the other.
Is this typical behavior for this species or are they being starved to death?
They live in a 150 gallon tank with a 1-2 inch sandbed full of worms, etc and also tons of pods in the tank.
My water params are good as I've tested them regularly because of SPS corals in the tank.
Any thoughts?

 

[baloutang]

Actually these are brittle stars, but in any event, they are very slow moving and that isn't typical I guess for this species. They don't appear to want to eat as aggressively as before.
I've checked my PH and it's pretty stable so I'm not sure of the cause in their change of behavior outside of the fact I added a Leopard Wrasse to my tank which could be eating their food source?

 

[bencozzy]

not sure what are you feeding them?

my brittle stars would eat anything i put in the tank they really liked krill and silversides

 

[baloutang]

I've been feeding them a mixture of mysis shrimp, brine shrimp and some flake food which gets in there for my tangs...However I have been spot feeding them the past week.

 

[jdieck]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12245617#post12245617 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by baloutang
I've been feeding them a mixture of mysis shrimp, brine shrimp and some flake food which gets in there for my tangs...However I have been spot feeding them the past week.

Feed them larger pieces of seafood. Their center body gets flattened or sunken when they are not eating enough. Try about 1/4" to 3/8" pieces of shrimp, scallops or silversides. They will have difficulty trapping anything smaller.

 

[Tennyson]

I read that high amounts of nitrates often causes them to become sluggish in movement, and since you feed often, that probably helps with the nitrates. Test for nitrates, its probably the cause because the same happens with my two when its over 20 ppm.

 

[baloutang]

Nitrates aren't high at all in my tank, below 5ppm. I do weekly 10% water changes as well,
I went ahead and got some cocktail shrimp from the store and gave it to them. They seemed to like it, but are very weak. I'm hoping I'm feeding them soon enough (although I've been spot feeding them for the past week).
If it's not food that they are after, then they are stressed about something else, but I've yet to discover what it could be. My other inverts (tiger tails, snails, sand sifting sea star, hermits) all are doing fine. Corals also look really healthy.
Even with all my tests coming out good, I would assume if something is amiss then the other animals would exhibit some reaction as well.