starfish

1pix4c · #1 07/03/2007, 07:56 PM

who has a starfish in there tank, not the serpent or brittle,
a regular starfish. i got one at the frag swap and its dead already. i acclimated for about 4 hours

Lishoop6 · #2 07/03/2007, 08:15 PM

does a sand sifter count

1pix4c · #3 07/03/2007, 08:44 PM

Lishoop6 how long have you had it, and what size tank
mine wasnt a sand sifter though

kass03 · #4 07/03/2007, 09:03 PM

Starfish are veeeery touchy especially with acclimation. Lisa sandsifters need a big tank or usually deplete their food and die.
I kept a sandsifter about 2 yrs once in my 150. Ive kept a serpent alive my 150 for about 10 yrs now.
Todd if you have your reciept call Doc Fosters and they will refund. I had some snails die last yr and they refunded me for them.

kass

MSU Fan · #5 07/03/2007, 10:08 PM

We have a marble sea star - we did a short acclimation by dipping to match salinity and floating to match temp. He's been cruising the tank now for ~1 month now.

1pix4c · #6 07/03/2007, 10:15 PM

i did the same thing, some day i want a starfish

customcolor · #7 07/03/2007, 10:29 PM

i have a bunch of little stars no bigger than a dime if even that big. i think i have about 20 of them running around my 55

Lishoop6 · #8 07/03/2007, 10:52 PM

I have had my star in a 29 for a year and a half and it is still growing he rarely surfaces though

kass03 · #9 07/04/2007, 01:11 AM

Customcolor, those are astrea starfish thats all the bigger they get and are usually ok in a reef. I have alot of those in my 150 also.
I've also had the mini brittles for years, my serpent about 10 yrs and I have a bright orange brittle in my nano I got last year as a hitchhiker thats getting big.
Serpents and brittles not so hard to keep but true stars that are reef safe besides astreas are IMO.

Heres a bad picture of my orange brittle. It's over trippled it's size since I got it on this picture but still small enough for my nano.

kass

customcolor · #10 07/04/2007, 02:28 PM

no idea i had some one check for me and all i remember is that they are reef safe and they are normaly good and behave well.this is what they are

MSU Fan · #11 07/04/2007, 02:59 PM

Here's our marble:

Sorry, I have no idea why it is listing my image as the HTML link.

kass03 · #12 07/04/2007, 03:22 PM

Customcolor I said it wrong those are Asterina stars. Theres alot of different varieties and most are reef safe.
I got the name mixed up with astrea snails lol.

Heres a link to hitchikers that comes in handy.

http://www.xtalworld.com/Aquarium/hitchfaq.htm

MSU fan cool star but is it reef safe? The bumps would kinda scare me lol. I know fromias and linkias are usually reef safe.

My serpent is maroon in color and the only time I had trouble was when I added some Florida xmas tree worms. They ( I had 3 stars) jumped right on them and sucked the worms out. I didnt expect it cuz I have alot of feather dusters that they never bothered.
Its getting old and lost 2 legs so I thought it was dying but it's growing them back now.

kass

siropa · #13 07/04/2007, 03:27 PM

i've got about a billion of the stars that customcolor posted. billions. if anyone ever wants any, they are welcome to some. just have to be patient and pick, pick, pick.

MSU Fan · #14 07/04/2007, 03:40 PM

it's a fromia, and he feeds on diatoms and detritus mostly - see this link here for more info:

http://www.fantasyreef.com/database/index.php?p=getitem&db_id=1&item_id=67

siropa · #15 07/04/2007, 05:10 PM

1pix4c, your mailbox is full.

customcolor · #16 07/04/2007, 09:09 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kass03
Customcolor I said it wrong those are Asterina stars. Theres alot of different varieties and most are reef safe.
I got the name mixed up with astrea snails lol.

Heres a link to hitchikers that comes in handy.

http://www.xtalworld.com/Aquarium/hitchfaq.htm

now that i read that i know that they are reef safe. they are all over my glass and seems like there is getting to be more of them every month. i dont mind them

nellie54914 · #17 07/04/2007, 10:55 PM

We have a sand sifting and a brittle star. The sand sifting we've had for about a year and a half, the brittle about 6 months.

In the past we tried a marble star (fromia) and it died within a couple hours after acclimating. We tried a red fromia a couple months after taht, that one died after a couple weeks. Guess we can only keep plain stars in our tank!

Stigmatic · #18 07/05/2007, 12:06 AM

I have a red and black serpent which are about 2 years old and a blue linkia which is about 1.5 years old. I like the pic of that marble star, i might need to "invest"...

kass03 · #19 07/05/2007, 01:32 AM

Ok I didnt realize it was a fromia. It looked different than I remember marbles looking lol.
In the past Ive tried those small red fromias but they never lived real long.

I also have the asterinas in my 150 and they eat algae but I guess theres a few kinds that might harm corals. Its funny how they range from 1 leg to 7.

kass

gooch · #20 07/05/2007, 11:02 AM

The problem with a lot of starfish is they are dead even before they hit the store. What I mean by that is. Many wholesalers just can not or do not acclimate them properly, they don't have the time. Often they get it in put it in a holding tank and many times rebag and ship it to the retailer the same day. So even if the retailer takes the proper steps to acclimate the starfish(which I am sure they did) the animal is "dead" before they get it. It could be a day, week or a month. When I had the shop I had these issues. I stopped getting them in. I held everything for two weeks before selling it and very rarely had a starfish last that long. Serpents and brittles are the easiest to keep.

gooch