will a banded serpent star eat fish?

[polyppetey]

I am a loss to explain how i have lost (completely dissapeared) 5 fish in the last 3 months. I am suspect of my serpent sea star which the LFS assured me was completely fish safe. One minute the fish are there the next they are gone, the tank is covered with a hood so jumping is out of the question. I have never seen any bodies even going to the point of pulling most of the rock out.

 

I had a crab trap going for 10 days and caught nothing in it and am pretty sure 99.9% I do not have any bad hitchhiker crabs or mantis shrimp in the tank.

 

What do you think??

[reef keeper]

i have a serpent star and LFS did say safe but ive heard mixed things about them.

[Pickle010]

They are carnivores... how big is it?

[BLoCkCliMbeR]

now that you mention it, where is my serpant star...

[rocko52286]

Is it green?

[polyppetey]

it is a banded serpent star not a green one, it is not the spiky kind.

I would say it is about 6 inches across.

[Urchinhead]

It could be eating your fish. At that size they are capable of it. Especially if it finds one asleep. They are carnivore's after all. Though it would be odd for them to consume all of the fish in one sitting. Could be that the star gets the initial kill and eat while your other CUC nibble round the edges. I have seen 6" wrasse go from there to not there in 24 hours FWIW with a moderate sized star and hermits.

 

Try feeding it either silversides, PE Mysid, or freeze dried krill about 2-3 times a week and see if your fish stop disappearing.

Edited May 24, 2010 by Urchinhead

[imsobored152]

I feed mine shrimp pellets daily, so far no missing fish. theres usually at least one fish hanging out by my serpent most of the time

[sanchez]

I have a 6" serpent, and it's so slow and lazy that one of my ricordeas managed to get half of one of the serpent's legs in it's mouth before it moved away. Needless to say the star is sans leg at the moment..

 

Haven't had a problem with it myself, I don't feed it directly but I'm sure it eats mysis/pods that are on the bottom or stuck in rocks.

[jeremy0411]

I ha done that size that was a fish eater so not impossible

[kylexarbor]

My serpent sea star has completely swallowed my bangaii cardinalfish. They can definitely be aggressive. 

[mndfreeze]

On 10/11/2018 at 2:24 PM, kylexarbor said:

My serpent sea star has completely swallowed my bangaii cardinalfish. They can definitely be aggressive. 

 

Didn't you have a green BRITTLE star?  It has little spikes that run down the legs?  Those are known fish killers.  Harlequin/banded serpent stars are generally fish and reef safe.

[kylexarbor]

This is it. I don’t think it’s a brittle. No spikes and banded arms

[kylexarbor]

Swollen with fish

[mndfreeze]

Ahhh ok.  I thought in the other thread you or someone else  had mentioned it being a brittle.  

 

They are omnivores so if a fish it dying or dead I can see it happening.  Some can be worse than others with their levels of aggressiveness.

 

My harlequin serpent is super slow.  He can barely catch pellets dropped next to him before hermits get em.  I question sometimes if he even eats with how little he moves.

 

 

[mndfreeze]

If it looks like this its a brittle star, not a serpent star.  serpents are smooth with no spiney things sticking out anywhere.

 

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

I've owned green brittle stars in the past and they've never attacked a thing in my tanks. I did keep them well-fed though - I would place a small piece of raw shrimp/squid near their mouths or at the tip of one leg every 2 to 3 days.