serpant star gone mad??

[lbear5]

Hi I am new to your sight. I Need some help. We have a 75 gallon reef tank and last sept. we added a serpent star to the tank. All has seemed well. He is very active and fun to watch. He comes out when we feed and the kids love him. We have seen him eating a piece of a snail that we assumed was dead first. Question ??
Just introduced a white sand star fish two days ago. Last night found the sepent with one of the white stars legs in his mouth.
We rescued him and seperated the two. Latter in the evening serpent was dining on the white star again. Took the white star out of tank and quareteen him in lower sump till we can find out what to do? We also noticed last night that we haven't seen one of our pepperment shrimp for a few days. Has serpent gone mad or is there something possibly wrong with the new white star fish?? Any advice please. We would like everyone to get along.

 

[illal]

ive herd serpants get big and will eat tank mates so i wouldnt doubt him for a second

 

[rich_tilbury]

I've kept a few brittlestars and serpent stars and they are pretty well behaved and will only eat dead things or stuff on its way out.

However, there is a serpent/brittle star which is a green colour and that isn't safe. It is very pretty though! It will even catch fish and grows to about 90cm across (3').

http://www.reefed.edu.au/explorer/animals/marine_invertebrates/echinoderms/brittle_stars.html

They are green with yellow highlights on the projections on the arms, or the ones I saw looked like this.

 

[Frick-n-Frags]

Yeah, I bought a "green terror" once back in the day. We got to watch it trap and kill a fish. That really was bogus. It was gone the next day back to the LFS.

the red ones with no spines are much mellower

 

[Racso]

some serpant stars are very aggressive. They can, as the post above states, trap fish and eat them live. If thats what you have, then it hasn't gone mad, its just doing what it does.

 

[corals b 4 bills]

I have a green brittle that started eating my fish so I put him in sump jail now he has been living in my fuge for about 2 months, Today I have to go to my LFS to pick something up so I'll give him to them as a gift for some guys aggressive tank. This little guy started out at 4-5 inches when I got him now he's 15 inches from end to end, his disc is 2 inches around, I've only had him for a year. ( I love to pluck him out of the fuge to scare people).