Four hitchikers this time!!!!!

[nanoreefer2k3]

Ok here's the deal, since I had to brave the bad roads and ice and ACTUALLY go into work this morning despite the federal and local governments being shut down( northern Virginians seem to panic at a little snow and ice<seven inches> )when I was thru I decided to stop by a LFS near work to just see if they had anything good. They did so I bought a gorgonian they called a Red Sea Fan, well when I was acclimating it in a bucket with a drip line I noticed what initially looked like some kind of worm wrapped around one of the branches of the gorgonian. Not knowing what it was and not wanting to introduce an unknown hitchhiker into my tank I took the safe route and thouroghly inspected the gorgonian up close with a lot of light. I discovered three more of these worm looking things. Being a bit paranoid about bad hitchikers I took scisors and clipped off a few tips of the branches to get these guys off the main gorgonian and seperated so I could try to ID them figuring worst case scenario if the were good guys I could just put them in the main tank and attach the pieces of gorgonian to rock rubble. Since they were wrapped tightly around the gorgonian "branch" I figured I'd try to lure them off using some formula two. That worked really well and I very soon discovered I had four baby basket stars of some type. Three of them are about the size of a pencil eraser and the fourth is about half that size. I am assuming they hitch hiked into the lfs tank on some LR or the gorgonian itself. Ok now is the fun part not wanting to just discard them and kill them I am thinking of putting them in my small "bad guy" tank with the other bnad guys I have found. So what should I feed these guys? how fast will they grow and how big can they get? From what I have read about them they can get fairly large but I do not know how quickly that happens also I know that as a general rule if it is in the reef they will eat it if they can catch it so I was thinking about maybe feeding them brine shrimp and cyclop-eeze also how hardy are they and do I need to do more than the weekly 25% water change in the small bad guy tank now that I have these newest bad boys? what are your opinions and thoughts here ladies and gentlemen?

[tendar]

Well According to Julian Sprungs Ivertabates book under Basket stars there is one listed under simular called "Schizostella bifurcata, the Sea Rod Basket star a small species found curled around gorgonian branches.

They are carnivorous feeding on sooplankton and and particulate organic matter.

Provide strong water currents and a prominent object projecting into the water stream ( some thing like a sea fan) :-}.
Feed enriched live brine shrimps,fammarus, corms, mysis frosen sooplankton marine snow at night after the lights go out and thier arms are expanded.

They are listed as hardy when fed daily with a life span of months to years.

Hope that helps some. They should be fine in your reef tank and best on what they came in on from what it says here.