Nano star?

N

Noah 123

New member
I'd like a sea star, they are one of my fav. animals, but I want one for a 10 gallon. The tank will include blue and red leg hermit crabs, maybe some rarer species of hermit crab, and a pair of sexy shrimp. The star has to be hardy, small, and not a brittle/serpent star.

Any ideas? There are mini purple-magenta stars (like 2 inches long) at the lfs but I don't know the species.


http://i57.tinypic.com/2i74lmh.jpg[/IMG

Kinda like this.
 
Noah 123 said:
I'd like a sea star, they are one of my fav. animals, but I want one for a 10 gallon. The tank will include blue and red leg hermit crabs, maybe some rarer species of hermit crab, and a pair of sexy shrimp. The star has to be hardy, small, and not a brittle/serpent star.

Any ideas? There are mini purple-magenta stars (like 2 inches long) at the lfs but I don't know the species.


http://i57.tinypic.com/2i74lmh.jpg[/IMG

Kinda like this.[/QUOTE]

Those guys in the pic will get big.

Honestly unless it's asterina a starfish is just not going to happen in a small tank like that.

Fromia are the smallest species.. getting maybe 3 inches.. but they need even bigger tanks as their food source must be plentiful and is uncontrolable by the owner. A 125 gallon after a year established may still result in the animal starving down the road.

Linkcia is pretty much a bigger more specialized fromia.

Any other star is just flat out too big and to some degree predatory... they'll cover the entire glass of your tank! Honestly serpent stars are the safest options but the tank is still too small.. 29 gallon maybe for serpent.
Click to expand...
 
How about a sand sifting star? I know they get to a foot long, and need a huge tank at full size, but my lfs sells TINY ones (like 3/4 of an inch).

Or a red thorny star? The lfs also has one of those (about 1 1/2 inches).
 
Noah 123 said:
How about a sand sifting star? I know they get to a foot long, and need a huge tank at full size, but my lfs sells TINY ones (like 3/4 of an inch).

Or a red thorny star? The lfs also has one of those (about 1 1/2 inches).
Click to expand...

Red thorny.. or as I assume the african red knob star will get a foot in length. They are predatory like chocolate chips and not reef safe.

Sandsifter starfish eventually starve and rot in the sandbed like horseshoe crabs. I've heard very few success stories of them actually living in aquaria but most of the time they are argued for the collection of them to just flat out stop.. like horseshoe crabs (which I used to have before being donated to somebody else after running out of food in my sandbed.. bugger was only an inch big too!)

My lfs loves to order in species that don't last long so people rebuy!
 
Calappidae said:
Red thorny.. or as I assume the african red knob star will get a foot in length. They are predatory like chocolate chips and not reef safe.

Sandsifter starfish eventually starve and rot in the sandbed like horseshoe crabs. I've heard very few success stories of them actually living in aquaria but most of the time they are argued for the collection of them to just flat out stop.. like horseshoe crabs (which I used to have before being donated to somebody else after running out of food in my sandbed.. bugger was only an inch big too!)

My lfs loves to order in species that don't last long so people rebuy!
Click to expand...

No, by red thorny I mean echinaster echinophorus. My lfs has had one of these in a 10 gallon display tank for years and years.
 
Last edited:
Oh echinaster echinophorus is even worse. LFS tend to not care for housing their livestock properly until sold.

That's why there's reefcentral.. too many people fall for collector, retailer, and LFS's tricks.
 
egy7a7y7.jpg
Red Bali star http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=497+528+578&pcatid=578
 
steventaylor702 said:
No they don't had mine for 11/2 years in a Nuvo 16 was as happy as could be until I tore down the tank
Click to expand...

Really? Interesting.. I remember a discussion awhile back talking about their extreme difficulty and the fact they only eat invisible film algea present in 1-2 year old large display systems like blue linkcia.. what type of live rock are you using? How old was the tank prior to adding it? Did you regularly add new coral frags or pieces of rock to resupply the film?
 
steventaylor702 said:
No they don't had mine for 11/2 years in a Nuvo 16 was as happy as could be until I tore down the tank
Click to expand...

I would not suggest getting one of these guys based on one somewhat skeptical report of success. I'd say that most likely this person had one undetermined thing that allowed success, but judging by all the failure stories it's not likely to happen again.
Just because one person was lucky doesn't mean you should get one.
 
Here is what I learned while having the starfish in my tank it liked my water dirtier, when I got rid of two fish and started to get my water parameters in line for keeping SPS coral it looked like it was getting unhappy and unhealthy. I ended up staying away from SPS because both my soft corals and my starfish didn't like he water parameters I changed to and the SPS didn't like that parameters my soft corals and starfish liked. Also I would feed it some mysis and Cyclopseeze and it would Cruz over it and eat it when it was in the sand bed. I also noticed that it didn't like when I would blow the rocks out I'm guessing because I was removing it's food source.
 
steventaylor702 said:
Here is what I learned while having the starfish in my tank it liked my water dirtier, when I got rid of two fish and started to get my water parameters in line for keeping SPS coral it looked like it was getting unhappy and unhealthy. I ended up staying away from SPS because both my soft corals and my starfish didn't like he water parameters I changed to and the SPS didn't like that parameters my soft corals and starfish liked. Also I would feed it some mysis and Cyclopseeze and it would Cruz over it and eat it when it was in the sand bed. I also noticed that it didn't like when I would blow the rocks out I'm guessing because I was removing it's food source.
Click to expand...


Well this explains so much, this is DEFINITLY not a fromia you had. Fromia sp. are very notable for being diet specific on film algea and I can't remember but certain sponges too. Marble starfish, red tile, and the red fromia from liveaquaria you posted are all fromias with the same dietary behavior. Betta pretty much described my and many many other people's experience.

Now if that's your tank you posted (gorgeous btw) I see the star the I can't tell if that's fromia.. red fromia usually have black tips on their leg or have tiny little black dots covering them like the liveaquaria photo.
 
I still have no idea what my lfs sells. The little purple starfish. The one in the pic I posted is definitely not the same species because it's too dark purple and it grows big. The ones at the lfs are just little stars about 2 inches long (they're never any bigger), and they're a light purplish magenta.
 
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