Anyone ever kept feather stars long term?

[Reefkeepers Archive]

Title speaks for itself, has anyone ever successfully kept feather stars/crinoids long term? If so, what was your care routine?

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

At this point, I've heard of three people who have managed to keep them over a year so far:
-Bongo Shrimp on the forum here.
-Kamden Uelton also on the forum here.
-Michael Lukacyzn (see the Reefs.com link below).

The trick seems to be finding food that's the right size for the specific star, that has the right nutritional profile for the specific star, and that you can feed multiple times a day.

to my understanding, it depends a lot on the species and their required food size, but success with them is largely luck at this point.

The crinoid is a suspension filter feeder - you'll need to feed it/your tank things like various types of phytoplankton, pod nauplii (baby pods - adult pods will likely be too large), S-Strain Rotifers (Brachionus rotundiformis), or various tiny sized foods (TDO Chromaboost Type A, for example). It'll feed on any appropriately sized detritus that may be blown it's way too. These guys are known for being difficult to keep, as they (like other filter feeders) need fed pretty much constantly, and supplying that much tiny food consistently throughout the day can be a challenge.

(The foods above should be viewed as examples rather than required foods - some species may need phyto/herbivorous foods while others may need meaty foods).

Yeah, crinoids have specific particle sizes for foods they'll catch and eat (and to make matters worse, that specific size varies from species to species), but the real issue is that - much like with current "impossible" starfish - we don't know what they get their nutrition from. We know what some of them eat, but, like some species of filter feeding bivalves, they'll eat literally anything (including inedible things like sand and plastic beads) as long as they're sized properly. For obvious reasons, sand and plastic do not provide good nutrition to filter feeders, but they still consume these things. So, the real trick to keeping these guys would seem to be figuring out what they derive nutrition from.

Unfortunately, this is easier said than done, as they consume a huge variety of different particles, and some of the things that they are speculated to derive their nutrition from would be incredibly difficult to provide with any sort of consistency (such as sperm and eggs from broadcast spawners, or veliger stage snails). Other things that might provide the necessary nutrition may be easier to find (though not all of them would be on the hobbyist level), but there are so many of them that it could end up requiring dozens of different tests with a number of different specimens of the same species to figure out if any of them are viable options. Plus, it may be that a combination of things are needed to provide the proper nutrition, and that makes it substantially harder.

Once we have figured out what they get nutrition from, then we would need to figure out how much of it they need and how frequently they need it.

If we can figure out those two things, then we should be able to keep these stars without problem (or at least the people who care enough to become educated on them should be able to), but, until then, it's really just going to be trial and error with most people failing and a few succeeding.

Quotes from the individuals who kept them:

I kept several for over 4 years and the above comments are accurate. I tailored my system to fit their needs, as they are not an animal that you can throw into any aquarium and hope it'll live. Closing up is a sign that they are uncomfortable or are being irritated. When they feed, they do wave their arms in the water column, but they don't just close up. If they are eating, food will be caught by the pinnules and then worked down the center of the arm towards the mouth. Sometimes they appear to be eating, but either end up lacking the proper nutrition or the food doesn't actually end up being ingested. Therefore it can look like they are eating well, but they still slowly starve. It can take them many months to starve, so it's difficult to measure success with these animals. I can only assume that mine were indeed eating considering they lived for over 4 years and as a rule of thumb (developed from personal experience), I always tell everyone to wait 8 months to a year before they consider what they are doing to be working. As mentioned above, not all species will eat the same foods. I have worked with several species over the years, and I was successful with only two. The system was fed at least three times a day (usually more) with a mixture of 4 small size frozen foods. I ended up losing the ones I had for over 4 years to a large parameter swing.

I sold all of them and got into freshwater they are such a pain to care for and barely do anything lol. I was feeding 5-7 times a day with Brightwell Reef Blizzard-O

A Journey in Crinoid Keeping

By Michael Lukaczyn About thirty years ago on my birthday, my father gave me a Metaframe aquarium with a pair of seahorses that he had bred. They were beauti

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