Is it reef safe ?

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I have bought this wonderfull star fish & was told it is reef safe & wouldnt bother my Seahorses. I did buy it becouse he said it is reef safe but i would like some more input becouse I dont want to trust just the store guy that my SH's will be fine. If hes reef safe but not pony safe I can keep him in my reef tank or a sump. So what do you all think. Is he reef & SH safe ?

He said it is a Green feather Star & it is in my sump for now just to be safe.
 
I recommend you do a lot of research on this, they are filter feeders and need a lot of food in the water column. I am not sure of the specific food they eat, but like mentioned above, they don't last long in our tanks. This is an animal that should be left on the reef.
 
That's pretty interesting. I've never seen one before. It makes one wonder if it will do well in the seahorse tank since there's always alot of food in the water. Filter feeding gorgonians do well with almost no spot feeding in our tanks.

The only thing I would tell you to do is keep an eye on it. If it filter feeds it's not likely it will bother the ponies.
 
The only way it would not be reef safe in your tank is because the ponies might try to hitch. They are delicate and do require a lot of filter type foods. In fact I belive I have read tehy are not sure what they even eat. Only recently have they started to appear in the stores for our hobby.

So make sure you have plenty of filter foods on hand, phyto, zooplankton, etc...
 
A pet store locally by me always has them but like mentioned above they start to die off after 2-3 months . they loose there feather like arms and finally die.

I've seen red and blueish green so far in thier store. Some one always buys them and they keep re-ordering them. Can't blame them really they are really nice to look at but unfortunaltly they will eventually die.
 
This is sad that they dont live long as they are a very neat critter.

I Have him in my sump right now so I will try diffrent foods & see if I can see what it likes best. I will start of with some kind of a fine mush & get a bit bigger with it. I will also try some small bits & chunks of food. If it does ok I will move it to my pony tank & make sure it gets what I think it likes best. When I move it to the pony tank I will spend alot of nights in frount of the pony tank with lights out to see how they get along.

I will do my best to keep it alive. I just hope it will be enough.

Thanks for all your help.
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Make sure to try cyclopeeze, there is a LFS that has these and the one's they have appear to eat it. They started with 3, 2 were sold and the last one has been in their tank a little over a month. The green variety supposedly will survive in our tanks, but this is only what I was told by a very knowledgeable employee.FWIW
 
From all the studying I did on them (after I bought one without researching) we can not provide it with food small enough for it to eat. It has very specific requirements that our tanks just do not meet. Ours lasted almost three months. It starts losing its legs one at a time, and it is a little freaky because the legs still curls and stuff after it has come off. They are beautiful and interesting creatures, we just do not know enough about them. I would do as you are now, and try feeding with different foods and keep a watch on it closely. If I was you, I may even keep track in some kind of written record when and what you fed and see if anything is affected. You may be able to do research and find out things that many other have not been able to.
 
I feed cyclopeeze last night. It curled up his legs & then moved over abought 6 inchs. I dont know if he liked it or not. It took its legs to the top of itself so I think its a maybe. I will have to see how it acts with the other food to know.

I fed some BS this morning & it seemed to hold on to the ones i squarted ofer it. I think it liked the mysis juice I feed it tonight after I fed the ponies.

Tomarrow I will try DTs & some new stuff ( Kent Marine ZooPlex ) I just bought to try out the other day. I guess now is as good a time to try it as any.

Isis

I have him in my sump & its low flo but he is in the line of fire but its still low. I will look around & see if I can find another pump to add to it .

bimmerzs

Mine is a blue green & black -- The green one the store had is it solid green or does it look somthing like mine ?
 
Yeah keep us posted, that's a really cool looking stars. I like starfish. I can't wait to get one in the big tank.
 
It's not solid, it's green and has white(light) band's. I asked aout it just for informational purposes since I had a lil puffer at the time (he would have immediatedly ate that). I ask lot's of question's and usually don't except general answers but was told if it ain't green then it's can't survive in our tanks very long. They also did say that the exact requirements were unknown and didn't personally recommend them for our tanks. After the discussion, I did get the impression that they thought featherstars should remain on the reef and not be sold but couldn't exactly come out and say that for obvious reasons. Keep us updated!

Cheers!
 
cyclopeeze is not a good food source for this critter at all. cyclopeeze seems to average around 800 microns in size which is WAY to big for a feather star to consume. Feather stars need food that is between about 30 and 200 microns in size. Most phyto planton plankton food seem to be above the 200 micron size as well. Your best bet is with DTs oyster eggs(which is between 40 and 50 microns). Featherstars naturally feed on invetebrate larve and eggs in the wild so I believe that this is the best option for this animal(so far).

I have yet to actually keep a featherstar but I did research them for about 9 months. I have yet to try to keep one but one day maybe. please try the oyster eggs and keep us posted on the progress.
 
[/quote]cyclopeeze is not a good food source for this critter at all. cyclopeeze seems to average around 800 microns in size which is WAY to big for a feather star to consume
 
http://www.goniopora.org/feeding.htm

scroll down. it will list various foods and their sizes. the page I generally get my info from is down however this page saiys pretty much the same thing.

however if your right about the size break down, then I take it back. I read about how large it was on one of the reef magazine articles a while back and never looked into it again.
 
Golden Pearls comes in that small size, and a little bit goes a VERY long way.
 
I had read that golden pearls did come in the correct size but I was unsure as to what they were so I just looked them up and actually I think those would be great as well. I am really focusing however on the fact that these animals feed on the larvae and eggs of other invertebrates and not on plant based plankton(which is what I almost always see as the food being fed to them by hobbiests). I base this on this little snippet that I got from and article in reefkeeping mag.

"Although there are a few scattered reports of one or two individuals persisting in aquaria, in most cases the crinoids imported for the reef hobby die within a short period. They typically die by slowly sloughing off the distal ends of their arms until all that is left is the body, which then dies. This pattern is consistent with what happens to other echinoderms during starvation, and it is likely that effectively all of the crinoids imported for the aquarium hobby die of starvation within a few weeks of being placed in a reef tank. Until such time as aquarists have access to a constant supply of eggs, embryos, or invertebrate larvae of several types, the husbandry of crinoids should not be attempted."

And now we DO have access to the eggs and larvea needed to keep this animal alive. I just get a bit annoyed as I still have yet to read about someone NOT using phytoplankton which can not be consumed by a featherstar anyway since phyto is usually over the 200 micron limit.

Swear to god, one of these days I am going to try out all my ideas that have been churning in my head for two years on how to keep one of these babies alive.
 
I wonder if this stuff would work for them..

"Because we have nearly unlimited access to tropical reef seawater at Indo-Pacific Sea Farms, we are in a unique position to supply fresh plankton to reef tank hobbyists. You'll receive, suspended in 500 ml of filtered seawater, a diverse assortment of hundreds of reef zooplankton specimens in the 50 - 1000 micron size range, comprising dozens of species, including many larval forms. Live Reef Plankton also includes literally millions of viable phytoplankton cells, at a density of approximately 100,000 cells per ml."
 
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