brittle starfish

[ollie51]

i have a green brittle star in my reef tank ive had him for years he has gotten quite large body size of a golf ball my question is what could he do as far as capturing or eating smaller inverts (crabs,snails ect) anyone have any experince with this? reason i ask is seem to lose crabs quite often,just put in 2 porcelin crabs less than a week ago and both seem to have vanished i did find one claw from one of them but no other signs

 

[chevelle383]

I dont know about crabs, but I can gaurantee you they can and WILL hunt, catch, kill slower fish. I had 2 copperband butterflys dissapear without a trace, I blamed the brittle. I bannished him to the dungon ( fuge) :badgrin: and bought another copperband and 8 weeks later hes still here. I talked to others and they dont trust them either. I think if you spot feed them at least once a week they are alot less likely to hunt, but I wont put them in my display anymore.

 

[azgard1]

Are you sure that it is a brittle and not a serpent star. I've not seen green brittle but Lot's of brown. If it is a serpent then it will hunt any fish etc that it can catch at night.

 

[chevelle383]

oh no... he's definately a brittle

 

[chevelle383]

Like I said though, I have no "proof" that he was hunting, but he looked up to something when he had only 2 arms hanging out from underneath a rock. And lets just say he got pretty big

 

[burning2nd]

i have a very large brown brittle

the one i have does not hunt fish... he sleeps with 3 fish... all one big happy faimly

 

[Holygral]

Green Brittle's are usually the fish killers