<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9484372#post9484372 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DJChesnutRabbit
Gosh, all you guys bashing sand sifting stars. I've had one for I don't know how long and it's been nothing but a model citizen. I can still see pods on all my rockwork and glass. I still have bristle worms, so they can't be all that bad.
Mine just wanders the bottom looking for whatever the fish and shrimp leave behind.
Just from a different point of view: Sand sifting stars can devour all life in most sand beds in a short amount of time then starve to death when all is gone. They feed on the small live organisms so important to keeping the aerobic and anaerobic cycles of deep sand beds going strong. They can seem quite harmless for a while, then problems often start...cyano being one.
From WWM with answers from Bob Fenner:
Questioner: I keep finding conflicting information about sand-sifting star fish. Books and web based information claim sand-sifting stars eat algae and waste. However, I have read your write-backs to concerned aquarists that sand sifting stars eat the fauna in the sand bed and you encouraged against keeping them.
Fenner: Yes, very effective at what they do. They can decimate the biota in a live sand bed very quickly...and left to starve as a result.
Questioner: So I decided to see what I could find out about fauna and its life cycle and turnover rate. I did find articles and tried to make sense out of what I was reading, but the articles did a better job of boosting my confidence that marine biology was alive and well with me guessing if I understood what I was reading. Is fauna really waste that is generated through a cycle?
Fenner: Um, nope...fauna is the animal life found in a particular region, like in your sand bed.
Questioner: If so, then what creates it?
Fenner: The fauna is not "waste" but rather the worms/micro-crustaceans in your sand bed...though it likely feeds on much of it.
