Keeping starfish in reef.
 

Just looking for advice on successfully keeping star fish in reef tanks. My 72 gal reef has been running for about a year now. Starfish seem to only last a couple of months. They slowly loose limbs, gradually loose the tips, then die off. Is the tank too young? Do they need to be target fed? Should i test for anything out of the ordinary? The corals are thriving, and growing. But the Starfish seem to be a struggle. I have this issue with clams also. Any advice would help. Thanks

I understand that they are not certain what a starfish eats. Had a red one for the longest time in my 72gal. Had it from basically the beggining. Then one day same
thing it slowly did the limb thing. It was in my tank for two years almost. Tried another
and don't think it even lasted a month. As for the clams they need to attach themselves
so nothing eats them. And lighting is important to.

many starfish should not be sold they are notorious for dieing quickly in our tanks, Some worse than others. Many reefers employ serpent or brittle stars as part of the clean up crew. I have some going on 7 years old. It is my understanding brittle scavenge free floating detritus and serpent are substrate scavengers

With the starfish it's probably a lack of food. And i'm not sure you can target feed as it has to be live in most cases.
Here is a good link for clams as it lets you know what the requirements are as far as food, placement, light etc.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/a....cfm?c=497+529

With seastars there really isn't a secret. It seems to me there are two different categories, those that we do know what they eat, and those that we don't know what they eat. Most of the "we know what it eats" are generally considered reef unsafe. Having said that I had 2 CC stars for many years and they never touched polyps, preferring to eat the nori I rolled over PVC pipe that I offered them. Maybe they would have gone after clams though had I had any of those in that tank.

Any of the ones we do consider safe are of the "we have no idea what they eat". Fromia, Linckia and their relatives for example. Unfortunately they either adapt to captive life, or they don't. IMHO there's really nothing a person can do to influence the outcome other than giving it a try and seeing how they do. Either they'll live a couple years or they'll die within a couple weeks to a couple months. Or so it seems anyhow. For the most part I've given up trying these kinds of seastars myself but as with everything YMMV. :)

I tried a sand sifter star a couple of months ago and he started losing limbs the day I put him in. He lasted all of 3 days. I have several brittle stars that came in my live rock and they seem to be thriving, no problems whatsoever.

are the brittle stars you buy at the LFS hard to keep?

What kind of starfish are you trying to keep? Some are near impossible to keep long term, others are more likely to thrive.

http://saltaquarium.about.com/cs/abo...a/aa090602.htm

Linckia(blue, living), Linckia(burgrundy) Linckia(orange), Small red sea star, Double sea star, Marble star, Brittle Star(living), Serpent star. Mainly reef safe stars. Over a period of three years and two tanks. I take my time putting them in the tank, but they just don't seem to survive long. I would like to try to figure out why.

If you were trying to put multiple starfish in that 72g then that is where your trouble lies. The easiest starfish to keep are Brittle and Serpent, and the only starfish I would ever reccommend to anyone. I would bet they are dying of starvation. They have big appetites. Target feeding the Linckias should increase your chances of them surviving.

I've read suggestions to target feed linckia's but never heard suggested anything to try. I tried everything I could think of and they just wouldn't eat it. I'm pretty much convinced they are after slime. Well, more likely, the bacteria that grows on the slime coating of stuff. Maybe some figure out that they can eat other things but most won't. They'll just last a couple months. I did have a blue linckia last 2 years but that was one out of maybe 4 linckia's, the rest lasted anywhere from 2 weeks to a couple months at most. The few times I tried fromia's they didn't even last a week. And this was after drip acclimating over 12 to 24 hours so it's not like I didn't take my time acclimating ... these animals just simply don't do well in captivity.

The long and the short of it is that still, nobody know what they eat and they are doomed to die prematurely in an aquarium. Where thy last decades on a reef we are lucky to get months or a year out of them. For some reason, if it were a fish that was guaranteed to starve in an aquarium people would be upset at the continued importation of them, but being is it is an invert, it seem to be O.K.

From http://www.reefkeeping.com/issues/2004-12/rs/index.php (It is the third part of a three part series if you are interested.)

Now that I am done my rant, the best part of the article was likely the last two sentences about Linckia stars which states “For large animals they are surprisingly benign. They seldom knock over rock work and do not harm most other animals while they are dying.”

I agree. People need to be more aware of how difficult if not impossible most starfish are to keep. Most should be left in the ocean.

I'm sure there's some starfish that will do okay (thinking serpents and Chocolate Chip) but would say if your looking at one that no-one knows what it eats (or can't maintain a food supply), probably stay away.

I had a Blue Linckia for 23 months, did notice it eating some black sponge. Problem there was it clean the patches off and the sponge never grew back.

I have had a chocolate chip star (brought it back to LFS long ago) and pillow starfish (had to bring them back as well... they eat mushrooms, ricordias and one ate my bubble coral. Perhaps they were not getting what they needed to eat and went to my softies. Never again, but lesson learned and nobody starved.

I am always told to get a sand sifting starfish, but would a sand sifting goby to the same job essentially? Also if a sand sifting goby can do the job, how many are recommended per 100g of water? If I had one of two in my 260g, would they be able to get enough to eat? A goby seems to be very busy and always sifting so I wonder if they do get what they need, even with one in my 260g at the moment.

Thats the answer! Most of the "reef safe stars" Blue, red, orange, are sponge eaters, I have had a blue for about a year now and it makes it's way around from rock to rock eating the multipule colored encrusting sponges that grow in my live rock "Purple, yellow, pink,black and white sponge" but I have noticed that over the last couple of months the sponge colonies haven't been able to grow back fast eanough to sustain the growth of the blue star. My tank is 300gal and after seeing this I would'nt recomend anyone keep these creatures unless you can aford to buy live sponge to feed it.

Your tank is too young for either starfish or sand sifting gobies. You have to wait for your tank to mature at least 6-8 months, but 12 months would be much better. Pillow Starfish are known to eat corals, and Chocolate Chip Starfish are near impossible to keep long term. I would consider both species better left in the ocean. Conches do a great job of tank cleaning - Fighting Conch or Orange Lipped Conch. I would suggest one for every 4 sq ft of sand. Bigger tanks could possibly sustain a Queen Conch, but I would suggest their keeping to the more experienced aquarists out there as they are a rather demanding species. You still need to wait for your tank to mature before adding Conches.

I agree that they may eat sponges when there is not their natural food. There is a good picture of one eating a much smaller star on Eric Broneman's forum (or perhaps it was Dr. Ron's...) and the comment it elicited from whichever expert it was is that while it may eat that in captivity when starving it is not the stars preferred diet. To this date nobody has done the research necessary to state what they eat though it is thought to likely be some bacteria and slime in their natural environment. When starving a person may eat grass (or Mc Donalds) but that does not make it a diet that will support our life for very long (especially the Mc. D's...)