Sand sifting star fish

[DLANDINO]

green serpent star

green serpent star

I have a green serpent star in my aquarium. He is great and so far has been no threat to the fish or any other life in the tank. I do feed him well though to prevent him becoming a hunter. He gets supermarket raw shrimp target fed on a long wooden stick.

 

[EyeCandy]

I have had my sand sifter star for two years, it has never bothered any snails or hermits. Strange.

 

[waterfaller1]

Re: green serpent star

Re: green serpent star

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11895072#post11895072 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by DLANDINO
I have a green serpent star in my aquarium. He is great and so far has been no threat to the fish or any other life in the tank. I do feed him well though to prevent him becoming a hunter. He gets supermarket raw shrimp target fed on a long wooden stick.

Green ones are the worst predators. They will bow upward and wait for a fish to swim under, then drop straight down grasping the fish. Wait until he grows to 15" around...he will eat a few fish unless all your fish are huge.
SS stars will eat the beneficial infauna from your sandbed~fact.
Any.."spikey red starfish" is not reef safe with corals.
Remember, there are two kinds of 'not reef safe'~ not reef safe with corals, and not reef safe with inverts/fish.

 

[Cheebs]

About the whole starving thing... I had a sandsifting star that starved to death in my 75. One thing to look out for that I noticed, was that every time I fed my fish anything, the star would come out of the sand and start climbing the glass, almost like it was trying to escape. I thought nothing of it, thinking it was normal behavior, then one day he didnt pop up anymore, and I havent seen him for months. The ensuing nitrate spike was probably due to his death.

My friend owns one, and to keep his going he feeds it an extra little chunk of shrimp once a week. It also likes to consume hermit crab molts and other little critters.

 

[discotu]

I've had the following cleanup crew for almost 2 years with no problems in my 225g:

2 sand sifting stars (and growing)
2 fighting conchs
handful of nessarius snails
hermit crabs
tiger cuke
and a couple of hitch hiker Xanthid crabs

My thought is that sand sifting stars are pretty passive and don't do much harm to a DSB and other cleanup crew. Iam not 100% but I don't think they move under the sand either..they pop up to the surface, move, then bury themselves. from my observations, it's a lack of food to begin with that kills these stars rather than the other way around.

I am also skeptical about the asertion that they actively eat pods and worms in the sand. Ever see the worms burrowed between the glass and sand? They are VERY sensitive and retract quickly when disturbed. I doubt a sand sifting star could effectively hunt these...same goes with pods. While they may get some, I don't think they make huge impact.

On the other hand, sand sifting gobies will destroy a DSB, but will keep the sand nice a white....and in cases sprinkled all over the place

that being said, and as mentioned above, not all systems can support these stars. Most starve to death. I imagine mine are doing well since I tend to feed my fish a lot (but I do not target feed the the stars).

 

[tbar]

My Green brittle star was exiled to the fuge

 

[AZDesertRat]

They are predators and carnivores no doubt. There is no debate on that subject.
One of the problems in the aquarium trade though is there are lots of different stars being sold as "Sand Sifting Stars". Some are worse than other but all are predatory and will eat anything live they can catch. I had my doubts and thought I knew better than those who were telling me this too! My system suffered for almost a whole year until I was finally able to get some of the sand bed life established again. I still to this day, three years since removing the star do not have the red spaghetti worms I once had everywhere. Nor do I have the amout of mini brittle stars that were once abundant. Thye are there but not like they were.
Don't think you know better than the Pros who tell you don't do it. I made that mistake and now I realize they were right and I was wrong and its a humbling experience to say the least.

 

[SCIFI_3D_zoo]

I could hardly find inverts at all, of any type, in the TOTM's. I looked at the last 6 or so and most don't even mention it. Paul Whitby said he has none. However, I found one guy "Skipper" who did have a lot .. including one sand star. I'm gonna see what he says. But one thing to note is he probably only has one in a really big tank.