green b stars?

[TDEVIL]

some people ask why cant i get one

well let me give you a bit of background
a friends tank was going down hill quick (family problems)
so he asked me to take some stuff off his hands, and i did

i got a n. trigger, a green brit star, and a leather.. the trigger is healthy and now gone, the star only had 1 good leg/arm, so i nursed it back to health, i didnt worry about it hurting anything because of having 1 arm

but now it is healthy and eating like a pig, i feed it fresh skrimp and frozen formula 2, and i wasnt sure of how many people have seen the predatory behavor of this star
i got some pics (not great pics)

they do this so when a fish swims under them they grab the fish and it becomes dinner
hope this helps someone out there

TD

 

[Montanarocknreefer]

Nice green brittle star!! Green brittle stars do get a bad rap in the hobby and maybe justly so as they are predators and act accordingly!

I had one for about two years and it got quite large and I target fed it and you have to remember as it grows bigger it requires more food. Mine never bothered any fish or inverts in my tank and I loved the way it attacked when feeding time! Johnny

 

[mojoreef]

Great pics and a good post TD. IMHO you always run the risk of the of a preditor doing what it is designed to do. Sometimes if you make sure you feed it religiously you may be able to get away with it.

Mike

 

[Doug1]

Just curious, how did it sustain the original injuries, was it due to the trigger?
I love green brittle stars, and yes if you expect them to thrive from svanging they will p[rolly go after fish. Feed them and they become quite interesting. M<ine would literally wrap an arm around finger and let its self be lifted out of the water. Their antics at feeding time are quite remarkable, esp if you havce had other more typical "crawly" stars

 

[TDEVIL]

to be honest i dont know how the injuries occurred, i do think that the trigger got it, the tank had been neglected and everything in the tank wasnt looking very good at all, a brain was overcome with algae the leather wasnt looking good but felt ok, it took about 3 months or so before the polyps started coming out

TD

 

[Doug1]

Well it seems to be recovering well, hopefully it will continue. I used to feed mine a decent size peice of shrimp every other day, after soaking in Selcon.
The fish I had at the time were small sebae clown, 6 line wrasse,yellow tail blue damsel and a pygmy angel. The star never bothered them .

 

[Montanarocknreefer]

My large green brittle star I had for over 2 years met it's demise I believe from a large yellow tang. It was new to the tank and in about two weeks I noticed a large hole in the disk of the green brittle star.

The green brittle star never recovered from the wound and had to destroy it! I miss the star to this day and may get another one in the near future! Johnny