Sand Sifting Sea Stars

kevinsimons

Reefing newb
Did my LFS steer me wrong in selling me one of these? Marine Depot says "Be sure to add this species to a well established tank with a lot of benthic invertebrates in the sand.".... my tank is only 2 months old.. so I'm thinking the creature may starve....
 
Kevin
They will scavange for food.Even though their mainly a predator of the little bugs and worms that live in the sand bed.
I wont say it that it will starve,but i'm not going to say that it will thrive either.As long as its getting food it will be fine,BUT you never really know.
 
A lot of times, those stars end up starving eventually anyways. They go through all the food in the sand bed pretty quickly and the bugs do not have a chance to come back. Do you have a lot of live rock? If you have a lot of that, it is more likely that your sandbed has been seeded with a lot of critters already.
 
Do you guys think I could place food under it when he's visible? I have about 50lbs of live rock, and the substrate is 60 lbs of Natures Ocean Bio-Active. If manually feeding it will work, I'll keep it, but with all the rock and substrate, if he dies I'll have a dead animal in there that I won't be able to find...
 
Thats a hard question to answer Kevin.
I'd like to say that you have plenty in there for him,but on the other hand,You never really know.
I'd hate to steer you in the wrong direction and cause you to have water problems.
 
I was thinking of getting one of them. Now I'm not so sure. I need something to stir up my sandbed.
 
I'm not a fan of any starfish.I'll stick to my Super Tongan Nassarius snails(thats a mouthful).Like my wife says,they are ugly,discusting creatures.
 
All right - you guys convinced me - he goes back. Don't want him to die, and don't want to be bothered with manually feeding something that I'll only see at night.
 
I have a dog in this fight, I love my sand stars. I have six of them and they do wonders in keeping my sand looking clean and white. I have not lost any of them in the last 18 months. I did wait 6 months before adding them, and I recommend waiting that long to make sure you have enough grub for them.

-Dr Marco :sfish:
 
Starfish are cool! Especially brittle and serpent stars. When I feed my fish, they come rushing out from under the rocks and go crazy standing on two legs, completely vertical, trying to grab food out of the water column.
 
Off topic, but cool nonetheless - today my cleaner shrimp gave me a manicure while I was doing some minor maintenance... I've heard they did this - but never thought it would happen. This critter now holds the #1 spot in my tank for uber-coolness....
 
Both my cleaner shrimps and my pepperment do that.

I like my stars to.As far as I can tell,I got one serpent,one pretty big brittle,and to many little brittles to count.
 
I was thinking of getting one of them. Now I'm not so sure. I need something to stir up my sandbed.

I was tempted too. I have about 27 pounds of PREMIUM cured live rock in my 30g tank. I bought the rock from a local reefer and it was covered in live critters and coraline. But, Yote told me that they need lots of food and a well-established tank, so I decided not to get a sand sifting star.

I bought a Watchman Goby. He stirs my sandbed just great. He's burrowing under rocks and sifting sand by the mouthful. My sand had a lot of brown algae and some green hair algae when I bought the goby. Less than a week later, the bottom of my tank looks like a white sand beach. Clean as a whistle. :bounce:

Saltwater Aquarium Fish for Marine Aquariums: Diamond Watchman Sand Sifter Goby
 
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