How quickly do serpant stars grow?

[Gary S]

Hey guys, today I went to my LFS and they gave me a tiny serpant star (about the size of a pencil eraser legs stretched) for free. Any knowledge of n how quickly they grow? Tried looking online but to no avail...

 

[Flippers4pups]

Hey guys, today I went to my LFS and they gave me a tiny serpant star (about the size of a pencil eraser legs stretched) for free. Any knowledge of n how quickly they grow? Tried looking online but to no avail...

Chances are the one you got won’t grow any bigger.

What color is it. Grey and black stripes?

 

[norfolkgarden]

The large ones grow slowly even with a ridiculous amount of food.

As mentioned, the one you have may be a Mini brittle star, which won't get much bigger than a quarter with arms stretched out.
We have at least 10, so far.
The cool part is they can/will reproduce in your tank.

Be aware that 1 of their food sources is copepods.
If you are trying to raise a Mandarin or scooter blenny or ruby red dragonet these won't necessarily help you.

 

[Gary S]

The large ones grow slowly even with a ridiculous amount of food.

As mentioned, the one you have may be a Mini brittle star, which won't get much bigger than a quarter with arms stretched out.
We have at least 10, so far.
The cool part is they can/will reproduce in your tank.

Be aware that 1 of their food sources is copepods.
If you are trying to raise a Mandarin or scooter blenny or ruby red dragonet these won't necessarily help you.

Are copepods their primary food source? And rn I got it in a glorified frag tank

 

[Flippers4pups]

Are copepods their primary food source? And rn I got it in a glorified frag tank

They are opportunistic feeders, like their larger relatives. They will eat pods, small frozen food particles......etc.

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

about 3" per week....

 

[norfolkgarden]

about 3" per week....

[emoji50]

Lol, that's not nice.
[emoji23]

 

[Gary S]

Can I expect my hermits to eat him? [emoji26]

 

[norfolkgarden]

I don't think so. But honestly the question has never come up to me before.

Anyone else?

Not @Brian Bieger.
[emoji23]

 

[pdxmonkeyboy]

lol.

my bristle star after three weeks.

there is nothing left in the tank but expensive fish carcasses.

 

[norfolkgarden]

lol.

my bristle star after three weeks.

there is nothing left in the tank but expensive fish carcasses.

Lol, don't get the green ones nicknamed 'Green Death'.

The yellows may also get huge and fish hungry. (Strictly from reading. Single account. But not many people talk about keeping the yellows, so it's probably Gospel.)

Our red one is about halfway between a nickle and a quarter in disk size.
Unfortunately I saw one at LFS that had a 1.5" disk.
Had absolutely no clue they would make it that big.
That's bigger than the biggest green I've ever seen in person.
No idea how old it is.
Hoping our red one doesn't grow 3" a week in the future.
[emoji23]

 

[norfolkgarden]

Our little guy.

 

[Gary S]

Mines totally white, with a beige/tan disk

 

[Gary S]

Any clue what those are?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Any clue what those are?

They sound like they are mini brittle stars.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Nice!

We have 9 now in a 75 gallon tank.

The red. A dull purple the same size. A perfect dark black and bright white Harlequin, a couple of two tone grey harlequins, a merlot(lol, dull red banded) an awesome pale orange and white banded we seldom see and 2 black bristle starfish.
I feed sloppy to make sure all the "too many" fish get some. And enough falls to the serpent stars that maybe they won't eat the 1" Grammas.
[emoji849]

 

[Flippers4pups]

Back in the day I kept large serpents. The reason I won't now is they can be predatory towards sleeping fish and they can knock over corals.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Any clue what those are?

A mini brittle starfish.
You can eventually have a tank full of teeny tiny floating arms when you feed the fish. But that would take , guessing, at least 5 years of overfeeding.

I know I've added at least 10 minis to the tank in the past 2 years and i still don't get to see them in all the rock we have.

They are too cute.

 

[norfolkgarden]

Back in the day I kept large serpents. The reason I won't now is they can be predatory towards sleeping fish and they can knock over corals.

Lol, we keep a few Turbos for coral arranging.
[emoji2955]

Always wondered about the smaller serpents we keep with much earlier rounds of trying Royal Gramma harems.
But I now 100% believe it was the dottyback tormenting the Grammas one by one.
Currently we have 8 small Grammas and no problems for over a month. 4 of them are the tiniest I've ever seen.

They never lasted 3 weeks when we had the strawberry dottyback in the same tank.

Know what you mean about the big ones!

Cool, but huge!
LFS in Massachusetts had a return "Green Death" with a 1.25" disk. He kept it with a 24" snowflake moray and a 10" trigger.
It was as much aware and a pet as the fish and eel when it came to sensing food.

 

[rkpetersen]

Back in the day I kept large serpents. The reason I won't now is they can be predatory towards sleeping fish and they can knock over corals.

I won't keep a brittle but I'll keep serpents. They seem calmer and less aggressive overall, although I'll admit it could just be the particular specimens I've had and have.