Harlequin shrimp feed exclusively on starfish, or more specificly starfish tentacle feet. Don't consider them unless you have an endless supply of starfish.Their starfish of choice is the Linkia, they typically will attack one arm at a time, cut it off and take it to their living quarters and eat on it till they need another arm. In the wild this is not devistating as the starfish will regrow the arm and go about it's life. Not the same in a closed tank unless you want to have a tank with Linkia's regrowing arms. I have kept them for a good while with the mini stars I have in all my tanks. Once they got to eating them I could feed them individually off a pair of tongs. Very pretty, but not practicle for most people.
Just started reasearching this and about the whole back wall in our 180 is covered with the small reef stars... and multiply very fast. I have read that not all HS eat the small reef stars?? maybe they had a picky HS? How many times do they need to be fed...i have read that they can go on feeding once a month, but not sure if this was the reef stars or a large starfish leg or would it matter?
I'm sure the larger the prey item the less frequently they would have to be fed because I believe the starfish,even the leg, will stay alive a long time. As for the small starfish, I have the same ones and I just let them eat all they wanted. It only tood them a short time to deplete them out of a 55gal tank. Whenever I had the time at night I would catch 15 or 20 and throw in with them.
