Psychographic
09/27/2009, 11:22 AM
Background,
Quite a few months ago some of my Asterinas decided to start munching on some of my corals. I bought a Harlequin Shrimp to take them down and have been feeding it CC Stars.
I remembered reading of people keeping about 5 of them and in rotation, cutting a leg to feed the shrimp, then letting them regenerate and no longer needing to buy new CC's.
I now have 4 CC's and I only feed 1 leg a month. Between the stray Asterina's and the monthly leg, the Harley has been doing well.
The problem is the regeneration of the CC's seems to be very slow, they heal within a week or two, but show no real growth.
They are in the return chamber of my sump and have been getting food that settles in there. I added a bunch of frag plugs to this area to help collect food particles. Most of the food is flake, I also feed the tank Mysis, Cyclopeeze and freshly hatched BBS, I honestly doubt if much Mysis gets to the CC's. I also think most of the Cyclopeeze or BBS get a chance to settle in this chamber.
I'm in the process of setting up a 20L frag tank that I thought I would partition off a section for growing the stars.
Now for my questions,
Is it a feasible idea to grow a group of CC's as food and have them regenerate?
Would it regenerate faster if I cut about 3/4 or 1/2 of the leg rather than the whole leg?
How long should it take to regenerate a new leg on a 3"-4" CC?
What is the best food for them? Maybe a supermarket item such as clams and shrimp?
Quite a few months ago some of my Asterinas decided to start munching on some of my corals. I bought a Harlequin Shrimp to take them down and have been feeding it CC Stars.
I remembered reading of people keeping about 5 of them and in rotation, cutting a leg to feed the shrimp, then letting them regenerate and no longer needing to buy new CC's.
I now have 4 CC's and I only feed 1 leg a month. Between the stray Asterina's and the monthly leg, the Harley has been doing well.
The problem is the regeneration of the CC's seems to be very slow, they heal within a week or two, but show no real growth.
They are in the return chamber of my sump and have been getting food that settles in there. I added a bunch of frag plugs to this area to help collect food particles. Most of the food is flake, I also feed the tank Mysis, Cyclopeeze and freshly hatched BBS, I honestly doubt if much Mysis gets to the CC's. I also think most of the Cyclopeeze or BBS get a chance to settle in this chamber.
I'm in the process of setting up a 20L frag tank that I thought I would partition off a section for growing the stars.
Now for my questions,
Is it a feasible idea to grow a group of CC's as food and have them regenerate?
Would it regenerate faster if I cut about 3/4 or 1/2 of the leg rather than the whole leg?
How long should it take to regenerate a new leg on a 3"-4" CC?
What is the best food for them? Maybe a supermarket item such as clams and shrimp?