a good beginner star?

[Lynnmw1208]

I'm looking to have one sea star in my 125g tank. what would be the best option for me? I was looking at the fancy brittle sea star atm.

 

[meatball87]

Any brittle or serpent star will be good just make sure u acclimate them slowly

 

[tozzi]

Stick to the brittle or the serpent. Linkas can be tricky. Sand sifters are cool too

 

[Lynnmw1208]

Stick to the brittle or the serpent. Linkas can be tricky. Sand sifters are cool too

I hear sand sifters don't do well in captivity. is that true?

 

[tozzi]

As long as u have an established sand bed your fine. U have a 125 so there should be plenty of food for it. Ive had 2 in my 215 for 2+yr now. Had 1 in my 125 for 3 yrs. They keep the sand real clean and there is neat tracks all over it in the morning. They kinda groom it

 

[rssjsb]

I would stick with the brittles or serpents. Avoid green brittle stars, but the others should be safe enough. I don't know how long a closed system can sustain a sand-sifting star. Usually, they clean out the sand bed of all the microfauna they can eat, then slowly starve.

There's probably someone around here (calling greenbean!) who could tell you how large a sandbed must be to sustain these animals, and maybe a 125 with an open aquascape would be enough. If you're a beginner, though, I'd err on the side of safety and go with your original plan.

 

[greenbean36191]

I can't tell you how big a sandbed they would need because there are a lot of different species sold as sand sifters and they have very different dietary requirements and maximum sizes. Some might be fine for a very long time in a 125, while others would basically be starving from the moment they were added to the tank, regardless of its size.

Some are so general in their diets that analysis of their stomach contents has been used as a proxy for sampling the infaunal diversity, while others are so picky that they only eat a few species of inverts within a specific size range. Those species closer to the former end of the spectrum would be more durable in captivity, but would also be the most destructive to a functional sandbed. At the latter end of the spectrum are species that would be essentially impossible to keep in a home aquarium of any size.

Regardless of where they fall on the spectrum, it usually takes a year or more for them to starve to death, and any claim of success short of the 2 year mark is probably premature. I generally would not recommend these stars to anyone especially a beginner, given that keeping one generally entails a trade-off between a healthy sandbed or a healthy star.

The answer I typically give about stars is that most people should stick to brittle/serpent stars. If you have a large, established tank and are confident in your ability to keep salinity and pH fairly stable, you might consider a Linckia, but only if you can find one that's plump and flawless after at least 2 weeks at the store. The exception to that rule is Linckia multifora, which consistently does well and even reproduces in tanks as small as 65 gallons.

 

[Lynnmw1208]

thanks for all the info! too bad about the sand sifter as they are very cool. I really like the look of the Linckia multifora. if it's as hardy as you say then it might be a good choice for a beginner like me. it's so much prettier than the brittle stars i'll have to see if my LFS can order these as i'd like to see it before I buy it.

 

[dzhuo]

Without doing a Google search on Linckia multifora, why is this particular one most suitable for our tank? Are they frequently imported?

 

[DarthAWM]

I hear sand sifters don't do well in captivity. is that true?

I've heard they slowly starve to death in smaller tanks.

Mine has been in a 56g for a year now. So far no signs of starvation every now and again I see him crawl up a rock or the glass but it is always on the way to another part of the sand bed.

 

[greenbean36191]

Well two of the main causes of captive stars are poor acclimation (at any step along the chain of custody) and starvation. For whatever reason, be it inherent hardiness or better handling, newly imported L. multifora seem to be less susceptible to acclimation losses than other Linckia. They're also one of the smallest species of Linckia available in the hobby, only getting about half the size of the others, so naturally it's easier to provide them with enough food and avoid starvation. They may also be less picky about what they eat, but given that no one knows what any Linckia eat, that's hard to say.

 

[dzhuo]

@greenbean,
How is Fromia milleporella or Fromia sp. compare to L. multifora in turns of suitability for our tank? Regarding what L. multifora eats, has anyone done a stomach content analysis? Wouldn't that reveal what they mostly eat in nature?

 

[greenbean36191]

I would never, under any circumstances recommend Fromia to anyone. Their long-term survival in captivity is far worse than any of the Linckia, even in big tanks.

I don't know if anyone has done stomach content analysis of Linckia, but they're generally thought to be biofilm grazers, so if you did try to analyze their gut contents you wouldn't expect to find anything other than unidentifiable muck.