Basket Starfish Care

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Skip it. Unless you want to watch it die. The problem is to keep it fed you’ll push the phosphates and nitrate to a point that will kill it.

 

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[DanConnor]

I think a lot of responses in this thread have to do people confusing basket stars with feather stars. Basket stars are not so difficult, and readily take a wide variety of foods and food sizes. Even pretty small ones can take baby brine. The problem with them is that they are nocturnal and eventually hobbyists get tired of target feeding something that looks like a blob of chewing gum all day. If you do persist, they can get quite large- too big for many tanks.

 

[Dawn Dababneh]

Like the feather star their better off left in the ocean. To many LFS bring these impossible to keep alive animals in just to make a buck knowing dang good and well their going to die it’s all about the money not the well being of the hobby these days

 

[Nailqueencat]

If we don’t buy them from shops, then the shops will stop bringing them in. They should be left in the oceans.

 

[Pjgould]

You can keep it, but only if you are prepared to feed it properly. They are suspension feeders and require food to be available in the water column at all times. I know we say they need a lot of food and we think 3 times a day is a lot of food. But I mean that I kept my 2 in a system with a doser feeding every single hour. I had them for a little over a year before I broke the system down. If you are prepared to do what it takes to keep it I will share everything I did to keep mine. If not, then pass on it.

As for the duster, feather dusters are a kind of tube worm, and are Polychaetes. Crinoids are sea stars, and remain to this day one of the most difficult things I've kept bedsides Dendronephthya. Feather dusters do filter feed but don't require as specific foods as crinoids.

Anyway, I'm here to help if you're up to keeping it properly.

I would like to know more information on the feeding. We have 3 saltwater tanks currently, 1 is 1200 gallon reef, 1 is 5 gallon shrimp, and the last is 10 gallon dwarf seahorses. I raise bbs for the seahorses, that's all they eat so I am aware of tiny food and lots of for something to eat.