clean up crew question (star's)

[Reilly Stv]

i bought a crew online....came with 2 Sea Cucumber, 3 queen conch, 2 SERPENT STAR, 15 Nassarius, 15 cerith....My tank...90 gallon set up for 6 weeks. 100lbs LR, 150 sand 4 inches deep (50 % live for seeding) fuge with LR and 100 % Live sand 5 " deep. Plenty of flow. My concerns are the stars....I've read alot of stuff about how home aquariums cannot support "certain stars", and that I would deplete my live sand bed. SHOULD I TAKE THE STARS TO A LFS AND JUST GIVE THEM UP? I really don't want them if I cannot support them, and more importantly if they will slow the developement of my sand bed. PLEASE HELP, SO CONFUSED.

 

[AnimaliA]

It depends on what kind of starfish you get. Most often a "cleanup crew" package includes serpent stars or sand sifting stars. If you are looking for the sand bed to act as a bio filter, you want to give up the sand stars. If you have a serpent star, be careful, the green ones are known to catch small fish and other tank inhabitants. I have had a brown one for over a year now, that seems to be ok...but be careful of the green ones.

There are some starfish that are extremely valuable and it sounds like your aquarium could support a population of: microstars. They look like miniature serpent stars only a LOT smaller. Usually less than the size of a dime, they actually do an excellent job of helping clean up any left over food from the smallest of crevasses in your live rock or sand.

 

[sunfish11]

I second AnimaliA's statements. Stay away from Sandsifters or large green serpent stars.

Queen Conch also grow huge and tend to go hungry. Most found in the clean up crews are aquacultured now. I like the fighting conches better personally. I haven't had a great survival rate with the aquacultured queen's that I got in a "package." There just doesn't seem to be enough for them to eat. The hermits and snails steal from them. My fighting conch on the other hand has been around for a couple of years.