Welcome to the Photo Gallery Spotlight. Each
month we'll showcase a particularly nice aquarium photograph, taking the time to discuss
the identification and husbandry of the animal pictured as well as information relating to
the technical details of how the photo was taken. Readers are encouraged to send
images (and details on the organisms pictured, as well as the details of how they captured
the shot) they would like to submit for possible inclusion in this feature to terry@advancedaquarist.com . For submissions
that are published in Advanced Aquarist, the author will receive a $25.00 gift certificate
from one of our participating advertisers.
My
picture of my Sea Rod Basket Star, Schizostella
bifurcata.
The little star arrived in my tank as a hitchhiker
on a Purple Sea Plume, Pseudopterogorgia
sp. just over 10 months ago. I feed it directly
every night with a pipette, its favorite snack is
small pieces of krill. I believe that it has
probably doubled in size whilst in my tank and
has only moved position once on its gorgonian home. I
assume the move was prompted by its
increased size. During the day it spends its
time tightly curled around a couple of branches
of the gorgonian and at night its arms are spread
wide in the typical basket star feeding pattern.
It recently had a near death experience in the jaws of
my Scarlet Hawkfish who plucked it right off of its gorgonian
home whilst trying to steal the piece of food that I
had just offered the star. Interestingly, the
star apparently didn't taste very nice or something
because the fish spat it out again almost immediately,
much to my (and no doubt the stars) very great relief. The
stranded basket star crawled back on to its
gorgonian with incredible speed when I
offered it a branch minutes later.
