At the weekend I bought a tiger cowrie from my LFS. I've heard mixed things about them, but I think they're pretty cool creatures.
They've had about 10 or so for at least the last couple of weeks (we're down to the last 3 when I bought mine) and had been keeping them in their softie tank... a load of leathers, polyps of different types, mushrooms and various members of cuc including sand sifting stars, snails, cucumbers and linkia stars.
I first saw them a fortnight ago and I watched them for a while, they were just cruising the sand, stopping to eat something miniscule etc.
The key point here is that ALL the stars, corals etc in the tank were completely unmarked... nothing bitten or maimed in any way. So, I asked a couple of questions and was reassured that these cowries were not bloodthirsty killers...
I popped him into my invert QT and he promptly sped over to the sand sifting star I keep in permanent residence and sat on it... a day later he finally moves and I'm left with a scene of devastation... in a particularly grim state, you can see the severed arm in the third picture.
Does anyone have any experience of this happening? In all I've read, I can't find any reference to tigers eating stars...
Is this a one off or will he now have a taste for stars? I have a sand sifter in my DT and my fuge so I can't dump him in their... that said, will he also eat the asterinas I've got? Never been bothered by them, but if he's gonna clean them up...
They've had about 10 or so for at least the last couple of weeks (we're down to the last 3 when I bought mine) and had been keeping them in their softie tank... a load of leathers, polyps of different types, mushrooms and various members of cuc including sand sifting stars, snails, cucumbers and linkia stars.
I first saw them a fortnight ago and I watched them for a while, they were just cruising the sand, stopping to eat something miniscule etc.
The key point here is that ALL the stars, corals etc in the tank were completely unmarked... nothing bitten or maimed in any way. So, I asked a couple of questions and was reassured that these cowries were not bloodthirsty killers...
I popped him into my invert QT and he promptly sped over to the sand sifting star I keep in permanent residence and sat on it... a day later he finally moves and I'm left with a scene of devastation... in a particularly grim state, you can see the severed arm in the third picture.
Does anyone have any experience of this happening? In all I've read, I can't find any reference to tigers eating stars...
Is this a one off or will he now have a taste for stars? I have a sand sifter in my DT and my fuge so I can't dump him in their... that said, will he also eat the asterinas I've got? Never been bothered by them, but if he's gonna clean them up...
