Are there any reef safe starfish?

[Delphinus]

Originally Posted by Whatigot

They all have relatively poor shelf like in captivity compared to the wild,

That's a really good way of putting it. I find there are two categories of star: 1) it's not really reef safe (of varying degrees depending on type); or, 2) we don't really know what it eats (so hit and miss whether they adapt to whatever slimes they find in our tanks). Think I've tried 3 blue linckia's ("linkia" 's ? I never know how to spell it) and one lived about 20 months, but the other two lived very short lives (a couple months tops). I tried a red Fromia, same thing, only a couple weeks, and a purple linkia (not a linkia per se but looks just like it, I forget the latin on it), same thing, only a couple months and then it literally tore itself apart and I had 5 individual arms crawling around the tank until they eventually disappeared.

I don't bother trying stars anymore.

It's funny, I've heard the claim now a couple times that pillow stars are safe. I don't know, I get the heebie-jeebies just looking at them, how can they possibly be reef-safe? I don't believe it. Guess it depends on one's definition of "reef safe"...