feather stars

[Kwater]

ok now just hear me out this is a queston that makes sense to me :)

i am competly aginst the inportation of animals that will not survive in a marine aquarium but i have really wanted a feather star for the longest time. i have an 80 gallon and a newly set up 20 gallon now i wanted one in my 80 gallon but i never got one because i figured there would be no way for me to overfeed and really pile up on the platonic foods to support a feather star in an 80 gallon. but then i thought about my 20 gallon, now feathr stars need large amounts of platonic foods of course so wouldent it be 100 times eiser to give the feather star all the food it needs in a smaller system, and i mean really overfeed the platonic foods everyday so that the feather star gets all it needs, it just makes sense to me to put them in a smaller aquarium or am i missing something???
now of course i dont mean grosley overfeeding the platonic foods so he gets choked out i mean enoughf to curcliate around the tank multple times till the feather star gets allmost all of it considering the smaller amount of water.

 

[BL1]

The reason I don't think that will work is because to get enough food in your tank for the star to do well will most likely tank your water quality. And being they are a very sensitive invertto begin with the poor water quality will be just as bad as lack of food for it.

 

[Bifferwine]

Even if you can feed it, it's unlikely that it will live longer than a couple weeks. Saturating the water with enough food to keep it fed will harm your water quality, as Brian pointed out. And they require good water conditions. There is too much we don't know about these animals, and so far they haven't been able to be kept successfully.

 

[Kwater]

yes i was thinking about the water quality too, i was planing on using live phytoplanktin and when i do feed something dead like reef snow i plan on target feeding. and since the phytoplanktin is live wont it do more good than harm considering that it will take out organic disolved waste in the water whall preforming photosynthsis sutch as nitrate???

 

[Piratefish]

Some of those feather stars get big so I don't know if there is enough room in a 20g.

Also my thought on feather stars is if you are using a algae scrubber you can feed large amounts of food and not worry to much about your water quality. Also scrubbers produce tons of copepods which I am sure the feather star would love. JM2C

 

[Kwater]

When u say an algie scruber is that just something that u use to to clean the glass cuz i have hurd that term used before. And yes i also considered size if i get one i plan to get a small one and go from there :).

 

[PRC]

i am competly aginst the inportation of animals that will not survive in a marine aquarium but i have really wanted a feather star for the longest time.

So in a nutshell, you're against the importation of animals that will not survive in a marine aquarium until it pertains to you? :D

I would take the advice of Biff...Some animals are best left in the ocean.

 

[Kwater]

Hahaha na its not that i have rejected many animals due to survival its just i would love to find something to help these animals survive in captivity, not today not tommorow and maby not for years but i would love to find a way to make them live by trying diffrent foods and other things that people have not tried. I plan to be a marine biologist and it is not till then that i may if at all have any sort of break through in the captive survival with these great animals. I figure you can never start to learn to early but it is far to easy to start learning too late. And i am far more detirmined than anyone to keep what is in my tank alive. I spwnd about 2 hours a day just keeping my little mixed reef going good and i am highly motivated and read and cram info about the hobby constantly.