Keeping starfish in reef.

[don.ald]

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

[Myka]

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

[Douglas]

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.

[Myka]

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.

[Delphinus]

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.

[Dolf]

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.”

[Myka]

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.