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Lofus

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I've got a 72gal tank that I am currently stocking. I purchased a brittle starfish a few months ago and I suspect that he cought and killed one of the three chromis in the tank.

I was looking in the tank this evening and saw the starfish and three of my hermit crabs munching on him.

Is there anything I can do to prevent another one being eaten? Should I extract the starfish or is there something I could feed him to keep him from hunting?

Jim
 

Len

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There's two possibilties: One is you have a brittle that actually predates fish (prolly while they're sleeping) or you have a run-of-the-mill scavenger that was feeding on an already deceased fish with his hermit pals. If you don't trust the brittle - and most people don't nowadays - return it to your lfs. Nothing you can really do to keep it from hunting if it is. Brittles are untrainable eating machines as most simple organisms are :P

BTW, what type of brittle do you have?
 

Lofus

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:oops: I'm not sure what species. It is red with black spots on the arms. I read that green stars are predatory but I thought that the others would be safe.

I've never heard of hermits catching fish so it must have been the starfish.
 
A

Anonymous

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i had 2 firefish and a yellow watchman disappear, i had a black brittle that
hicthhiked on a big chunk of live rock. got rid of him and replaced the fish,
no problem since.
 

jorcutt

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Just to throw in a vote here, I would keep the brittle star. Really not trying to start a debate on whether brittles do or don't hunt down fish, but it's one of those things that speculation will never convince me of. FWIW, I've always kept lots of brittles in all of my tanks and all of my maintenance accounts and have never experienced a fish death that I could even come close to pinning on a my slow moving brittle stars. I haven't ever kept the greens simply because they get too big and too aggressive...not for the saftey of my fish, but for my corals. Anyhow, my vote would be to keep the excellent scavenger in the tank.
 

Lofus

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The Chromis was in the tank for a month and the brittle star for two months.

The star is a Ophiothrix fragilis.
 

ChrisRD

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Can't really comment on the star - no first hand experience with a large specimen.

Chromis seem a bit frail until they get settled in. I would think a month would be enough time for that, but it's certainly possible that the Chromis died and they were just eating him after-the-fact.

FWIW, the only fish-loss I've experienced in years was fairly recently with some Chromis. They seemed fine for a week and then one after another, three of them just died (one each in three consecutive days). They disappeared completely. I have other small fish in the tank that have always been fine, so I'm sure nothing killed them. The fourth is fine and doing great to this day. <shrug>

I think this may have something to do with the way these fish are handled/transported because they seem VERY hardy if they survive that initial period.
 
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Anonymous

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The fact that the hermit crabs were munching on him also suggests to me that it might have died rather than been killed by the star.
 

DOGMAI

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Just be glad that you saw the fish when it was dead. I have a giant green brittle and when a fish dies in my tank I can never find the fish but I do find one relly fat green brittle. This is one of the first things that i got for my tank. I have had him for almost a year now and he has doubled in size since i bought him.Pulled his leg off once. :oops: He grew it back like it had never happend. I had two scooter blennies that would use his legs as perches, and he showd no signs of aggretion when they did. I also have a dark red brittle with black stripes on him. He is very shy and you almost never see all of him. In my own opinion brittles are ok to have.
 
A

Anonymous

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ChrisRD":28x0so4u said:
FWIW, the only fish-loss I've experienced in years was fairly recently with some Chromis. They seemed fine for a week and then one after another, three of them just died (one each in three consecutive days). They disappeared completely. I have other small fish in the tank that have always been fine, so I'm sure nothing killed them. The fourth is fine and doing great to this day. <shrug>

I think this may have something to do with the way these fish are handled/transported because they seem VERY hardy if they survive that initial period.

i have to agree with chris on this one. i bought 3 seemingly hardy and healthy chromis that did really great for about 2 weeks. then one just up and died - then disappeared without a trace. the other two are fine and doing well for months now.
 

Lofus

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The Chromis have been (are) in the main tank for a month. They had already gone through 4 weeks of quarentine so they have been in my tanks for two months.

I figure the hermits got some of him becuase the star was very close to the bottom when I saw him eating.

I'm convinced it was the star that is the killer
 

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