red african knobby sea star died, lfs said what?

[Purplerock SD]

So a friend of mine had a Red African Knobby, General Star, Sea Star. It was in a Fish only with live rock tank for a little over a month. Water levels are stable and perfect, salinity stable. I don't know if he was target feeding it but I assume he was. Last week it suddenly died. He went to the local LFS and they sold him bottles of Iodine and Strontium and told him he should test those levels becaus starfish need regular suppliments of them. I have never heard such a thing and It really seems that the lfs just wanted to sell him something and shut him up. Has anyone ever heard that the care of starfish includes dosing Iodine or Strontium? Please educate me. Thanks.

 

[philter4]

I dose every week, I know that anemones need iodine to remain healthy and that shrimp can't molt successfully if the iodine levels are low. As for stars, every animal, humans included, need small amounts of iodine, and if you do regular water changes you might have enough, but maybe not enough for the stars.

 

[greenbean36191]

The LFS is blowing smoke. None of the animals we keep, including sea stars, anemones, or crustaceans require the addition of iodine, nor would they likely benefit. Almost all of their small iodine demand is met through their diet, not absorption. In fact, excess iodine can be detrimental.

Strontium has never been demonstrated to be necessary for any of our animals either and generally isn't depleted as compared to NSW anyway.

 

[Purplerock SD]

Thank you for that. That is exactly what I told him. The LFS was happy to be able to sell him two bottles of stuff and two test kits and tell him that's why the star died, their not to blame it's his water, and get an extra fifty dollars out of him so he thinks it's his fault it died.
This left him wondering: If it was so important why didn't they sell him this stuff in the first place. It's kind of sad the way some of these stores are just money making machines. Now they can sell him another star for fifty dollars and again not tell him how to drip aclimate for hours or how often he should spot feed and with what.
When they sold him the star he had two small skunk cleaners in the tank (110 Tall) and they sold him two large coral banded shrimp and two other shrimp, not sure what kind because the cbs ate them right off the bat and ate the skunks within a week. They assured him they would all be fine.

 

[Theomi]

i have had linkia and brittle (sp?) starfish and pepermint and camel shrimp for over 6+ months and a pretty big healthy bta and im not dosing Iodine or Strontium..

All are still alive, happy and the shrimp molts fine...

 

[romunov]

In light of greenbean's post, see Randy Holmes-Farley's article on various elements here.