Speaking of Harlequin Shrimp...

[rjarnold]

I love harlequins. I'm also a diver. There are starfish everywhere. So it was quite easy for me to take a small bit of leg and feed it to the harleys to see if they would, indeed, eat cold water sea stars. The answer is - yes, yes they do.

Then my husband insisted on taking a whole sea star to freeze it and see if that worked. I said several times that it couldn't possibly work - if it did, why weren't frozen stars already available for us harley keepers? That would certainly be much more convenient, cheaper, and with all of those crown of thorn pests out there - perhaps even better for the environment. But he insisted anyway, and froze a small star in one of those ziplocks that you can 'vaccuum' out the excess air.

He fed them a piece the other day, and they ATE it. Just like any other piece, they shared it and it took them about a day to consume it.

So are there any negatives to feeding cold water sea stars that have been frozen? I don't really know, this is very preliminary

 

[returnofsid]

Wow, very interesting experiment that could come in very handy!! Hopefully, you've started something that'll lead to some more research!! I really like your idea about harvesting the Crown of Thorns...lol. Freeze as many of those buggers as possible!! You'd think they could even be used as an ingredient in other types of marine foods.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

Puget sound stars?

 

[rjarnold]

Yeah, though the only one I've tried is the sunflower.

 

[Herefishyfishy]

I will trade you a power diatom filter and media for a delivered bag of frozen stars (legally collected of course)

 

[rjarnold]

I just went and got silicate removal stuff yesterday :\

If you're going to be at the frag swap I can give you what I have left of the frozen star (which is almost complete). Should last awhile.