UltraSea Fan - basket star feeding?

[Hesham]

As suggested by Aquarium Obsessed, I'm re-posting this question concerning UltraSea Fan here;

Are the basket stars in the pictures from thread;

Gorgonia System (http://reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&postid=13363361#post13363361)

showing a feeding response when UltraSea Fan is added to the water? Is the UltraSea Fan supplemented with other foods for basket star feeding? I'm very weary of trying to keep basket stars - I'm curious about your success with these animals.

[C. Schuhmacher]

HI

The most of them are not so difficult as the people think
We use a mix of MIN-S , Sea fan and Clam and feeds the animals several a day.

Very important it is also to clean the water to low nutrition have a good skimmer and also no yellow water
So i filtered all the time over UltraPhos and UltraCarb L

Greets claude

[Jens Kallmeyer]

HI

Are you talking about feather stars or basket stars? These are two different groups of animals with significantly different feeding habits.
Feather stars have arms like this
http://www.dnr.sc.gov/marine/sertc/images/photo%20gallery/crinoid%20.jpg
a single central tube with almost perpendicular small "hairs", basically like a feather. These animals have their mouth facing upwards.
A basket star has branched arms with no perpendicular appendices. The arms become finer and more branched towards the end, as you can see here
http://www.elasmodiver.com/BCMarinelife/images/Basket-star-open.jpg

While feather stars usually react positively on the fine foods of Fauna Marin, Basket stars prefer much coarser foods. I had one for about a year and it just loved Mysis! Basket stars can easily be fed in the evening, just let some Mysis or Artemia drift into their arms, they will immediately curl up and stuff the food into their mouth, which is on the bottom of the star, facing towards the substrate. They do have an opening at the top, but this is the rear end. Several people tried to force feed them but just gave these poor critters an enema.

Jens

[Hesham]

Thanks Jens. I did mean feather stars and not basket stars.

Feather stars are not offered for sale very often in Canada. I've not considered keeping them due to their required diet. I'll probably experiment with various Fauna Marin foods before attempting to keep any feather stars.

It seems that keeping feather stars (and basket stars) is not such a great mystery after all.

[Jens Kallmeyer]

HI Hesham

In my limited experience basket stars are much easier to keep, because they can handle transport much better. Most feather stars are already in a terrible condition by the time they reach the LFS. Interestingly, the green variety with slightly coarser arms seems to be doing much better than the more colorful ones.
Basket stars can be purchased from several collectors in Florida, but I don't know if they ship to Canada. These animals have the shortest possible way between collection and your tank.
Both types of starfish are often being picked at by angelfish and others, so be aware of that and react fast if necessary

Good luck
Jens