New live rock with more surprises

dbeaty78 · Aug 12, 2013

I bought 9 more lbs of live rock with some good coraline algae already on it. It also has some red looking algae o nit what is this? I huge snail come out and two good size serpent stars and three more crabs. Questions are will my snow flake eel eat my snail because the snail is really big. What exactly does the snail eat or clean. What do the serpent starfish eat are they cleaners? I am feeding my snow flake eel chunks of shrimp which he loves and the serpent starfish seem to like it also I thought they were cleaners though am I wrong? Also I have spotted a small starfish coming out of one of my older live rocks and he is small but I don't know exactly what kind he is because he wont come all the way out. From his tentacles he looks to be almost a maroon or brown striped with white however like I said he wont come all the way out for me to see him anybody know what he is based on colors? He is small and just popped out of one of my first pieces of live rock I put in about 4 weeks ago.

Reefing Madness · Aug 14, 2013

Red on the rock can also be Coralline Aglae.
I doubt the Eel will eat the snail. They aren't ones for going after them.
Serpetn Stars are scavengers, and they will pretty much eat anything in front of them, meaty. So the shrimp he is picking up is perfect.
Unable to Identify your other starfish by just solor. May just be another Serpent Star, does it have long skinny legs like the other one? Pics would be a big help.

cota472 · Aug 14, 2013

serpent stars are cleaners, in they will pick up food that has come down to the bottom. They are beneficial cleaners, they can get to be very large. Mine is probably close to 20" from tip to tip. At that size people worry about the star taking down a fish, I have not had a problem but I keep it well fed.