Red Feather Satrfish

[Jan]

Does anyone have any personal experience keeping these? Do any of our LFS's ever get these in? I want one.

Edited March 11, 2010 by Jan

[TonyInVa]

Never seen one before. Interesting.

[Hilary]

Great video - I've never seen one swim. I really, really, REALLY recommend against getting one (if you can even find one) unless you've done your research and are incredibly lucky. Sean at F&F had one or two at one point - don't know how they did. I saw one (at a different LFS) awhile ago and was convinced that "they're so easy". Okay - cool. I've seen them while diving and thought one would be a great addition to my tank. Lesson - don't believe what you're told, and do your research first. I got home and started reading about them, and was horrified to read that they basically have a 0% success rate - nobody seems to be successful feeding them. Sure enough, I direct fed with DTs and sponge/filter feeder food, blew detritus from the rock around it, but it did not make it. According to WetWebMedia "In public aquaria, cultured diets of brine shrimp nauplii, copepods and diatoms have proved effective."

 

Crinoid FAQs

[Jan]

Thanks Hilary. You know me when it comes to researching things. I do my research and then some. I've been researching information about them most of the afternoon. The consensus is that most aquarist have no success with them in the home aquarium, you're right. They require huge amounts of flow and large amounts of plankontic organisms for their survival. I'd take a chance if I saw it swimming around in one of our LFS's the way it was swimming in the video but I doubt I'd find one. Aquatic Connection sells them but I wouldn't purchase something like this online.

 

Everything I read about breeding skunk cleaners in the home aquarium says aquarist have no success. I keep looking for information on how to care for the ones I have. WWM tells everyone that asks about breeding skunk cleaners that they wont succeed, yet I've got 12 lil ones eating flake food and growing. I've had them for a few weeks now. I didn't even try to breed them.

 

 

Great video - I've never seen one swim. I really, really, REALLY recommend against getting one (if you can even find one) unless you've done your research and are incredibly lucky. Sean at F&F had one or two at one point - don't know how they did. I saw one (at a different LFS) awhile ago and was convinced that "they're so easy". Okay - cool. I've seen them while diving and thought one would be a great addition to my tank. Lesson - don't believe what you're told, and do your research first. I got home and started reading about them, and was horrified to read that they basically have a 0% success rate - nobody seems to be successful feeding them. Sure enough, I direct fed with DTs and sponge/filter feeder food, blew detritus from the rock around it, but it did not make it. According to WetWebMedia "In public aquaria, cultured diets of brine shrimp nauplii, copepods and diatoms have proved effective."

 

Crinoid FAQs

[Hilary]

That's so great about the skunks - congrats!!

[GraffitiSpotCorals]

Thanks Hilary. You know me when it comes to researching things. I do my research and then some. I've been researching information about them most of the afternoon. The consensus is that most aquarist have no success with them in the home aquarium, you're right. They require huge amounts of flow and large amounts of plankontic organisms for their survival. I'd take a chance if I saw it swimming around in one of our LFS's the way it was swimming in the video but I doubt I'd find one. Aquatic Connection sells them but I wouldn't purchase something like this online.

 

Everything I read about breeding skunk cleaners in the home aquarium says aquarist have no success. I keep looking for information on how to care for the ones I have. WWM tells everyone that asks about breeding skunk cleaners that they wont succeed, yet I've got 12 lil ones eating flake food and growing. I've had them for a few weeks now. I didn't even try to breed them.

Wow Jan congrats on becoming a skunk cleaner shrimp mommy IF you want to unload 2 or 3 of the offspring sometime let me know! You should be very proud of yourself!

[Jan]

Thank you. This was really an accident. I wanted to get rid of a large rock of armor of god palys and so I removed it from my display and placed it in the temporary macro tank. It sat there for about a week and then I moved the rock back. I spotted these tiny things that looked like brine shrimp. They couldn't be brine shrimp because I don't ever feed brine shrimp. I looked at them with a magnifying glass and that's when I saw that they were tiny skunk cleaners. Their parent must have layed eggs in or around the rock. I spotted only 3 at first under a GSP rock. Everyday I'd look to see how they were doing. I did this for about 10 days then my eye caught something moving in another part of the tank and that's where I found 6+ more. As I looked some more I found 3 more swimming around a rock in the center of the tank. I keep trying to take pics of them but they're still too little. I'll post pictures as soon as I can capture them on camera. Everytime someone stops by to p/u coral or something I hand them the magnyfying glass so they can see lil skunk cleaners.

 

Let's see how many survive. so far I haven't lost one. as a matter of fact I've got one really tiny one that must have hatched 1 or 2 weeks labehind the others.

 

That's so great about the skunks - congrats!!

 

 

Wow Jan congrats on becoming a skunk cleaner shrimp mommy IF you want to unload 2 or 3 of the offspring sometime let me know! You should be very proud of yourself!

[davelin315]

Cleaner shrimp and other Lysmata genus shrimp will hold their eggs under their abdoment with their swimmerettes until they are ready to hatch at which time they shake their young loose as pelagic offspring (I think I'm thinking of the right term). Essentially, they don't settle out right away and spend time in the water column. If you have these guys, then they were most likely trapped in the macroalgae. They would not have hatched out at a later time because they all hatch at the same time.

 

As far as the feather stars, I believe that John had a few specimens at BRK, but I would also caution not getting them. These crinoids are nocturnal but if you are lucky, they may become diurnal. They feed on suspended planktonic material and are very unlikely to find enough of that in a home aquarium. They should definitely be target fed if you're going to try it, but again, they are far from easy and I remeber 15 years ago when lots of them were being brought in. Of the starfish out there, the crinoids are even more susceptible to problems with pH which is compounded even more by the fact that they readily drop their arms in the wild and regenerate them fairly quickly. When I was seeing lots of them coming in, they always slowly disintegrated until they were completely gone. Not even the stores in Chicago that were the absolute best and top of the line were keeping them with any success and none of them continued bringing them in. Of course, times change, but I don't believe the time for crinoids has arrived and I would avoid these at all costs. When they were being brought in due to demand years back, I would say that 0% of them survived for more than the time it took them to either disintegrate due to pH issues or to starve to death. I'm all for trying the hard to keep species, but I think that this is one of those that will probably never find any success in home aquaria.

[arwndsh]

It should also be noted that the different varieties have different levels of sucess. There is a guy on nr that has a red and yellow stripe one that he has had for a few year. He doesn't know what its eating but its surving. There is also a few green ones that I have seen in a local fish store that are doing well. Again they don't know what they are eating but they have been in there for awhile. From the research I have done it appears that the solid red ones are the hardest to keep.

 

Also they are crinoids.

[Jan]

Thank you Dave. I didn't transfer any macro from the main tank, which is where the adult egg laying shrimp are, to the macro tank. They must have settled in the paly rock and got in that way.

 

 

Cleaner shrimp and other Lysmata genus shrimp will hold their eggs under their abdoment with their swimmerettes until they are ready to hatch at which time they shake their young loose as pelagic offspring (I think I'm thinking of the right term). Essentially, they don't settle out right away and spend time in the water column. If you have these guys, then they were most likely trapped in the macroalgae. They would not have hatched out at a later time because they all hatch at the same time.

 

As far as the feather stars, I believe that John had a few specimens at BRK, but I would also caution not getting them. These crinoids are nocturnal but if you are lucky, they may become diurnal. They feed on suspended planktonic material and are very unlikely to find enough of that in a home aquarium. They should definitely be target fed if you're going to try it, but again, they are far from easy and I remeber 15 years ago when lots of them were being brought in. Of the starfish out there, the crinoids are even more susceptible to problems with pH which is compounded even more by the fact that they readily drop their arms in the wild and regenerate them fairly quickly. When I was seeing lots of them coming in, they always slowly disintegrated until they were completely gone. Not even the stores in Chicago that were the absolute best and top of the line were keeping them with any success and none of them continued bringing them in. Of course, times change, but I don't believe the time for crinoids has arrived and I would avoid these at all costs. When they were being brought in due to demand years back, I would say that 0% of them survived for more than the time it took them to either disintegrate due to pH issues or to starve to death. I'm all for trying the hard to keep species, but I think that this is one of those that will probably never find any success in home aquaria.

[bcjm]

Roozen used to have them all the time.