Starfish dying

[Kahuna]

Not sure what's going on -

Water quality is very stable:

SG - 1.026
Temp - 80-80.5
pH - 8.05
Ca - 450
Mg - 1300
DkH - 10-10.5
P04 -0
N03 - trace
Ammonia/nitrites - 0

Had a blue linkia star and a red banded serpent star - blue linkia lived 7 yrs. Died two months ago.
Serpent is 4-5 yrs old. Slowly falling apart but alive.
Small red reef starfish - 3" - always in a ball somewhere, looks like it is stressed, had it about two months. Been like that since day one.
New blue linkia star (very large, 7") lasted one week, died, and "white spoo'd o'er the tank".

Ideas? Not being preyed upon. All new starfish are acclimated 2-4 hrs.

Best,

Kev

 

[Calappidae]

Linkia and fromia shouldn't be introduced in any newly established tanks. They are very diet specific eating filmous algea only present in very large established aquariums. Use a 1 year old around 200 gallon tank as a rule of thumb for fromia, and even then there is no guarentee they won't run out.

It's possible yours ran out and starved. 7 Years is actually pretty darn good if you ask me.

The serpent might have a different reason. Just keep an eye on him and maybe even relocate him to regenerate.

 

[Kahuna]

Thanks. The linkia went into a 1 yr old 90g and did great for years (don't touch the d-mn thing!) but the last linkia just basically died in a week. The shop had just received it still in its bag from wherever and maybe it was just too much of a shock.

 

[Calappidae]

The first one probably ran out of food and starved, and the second one didn't have any leftovers and starved as well.

Linckia and fromia don't have a very good success rate. I'm still waiting a few more years before I throw a fromia in my 125 (mostly to experiment if well fed harlequins will ignore it.. you can save a star off them since they're such slow eaters)

 

[Kahuna]

So... I should dirty up my tank! You're probably right, I can barely keep the cleaning crew alive there's so little detritus. I do get "dust" on the inside of my glass daily, though. Don't think my SPS would appreciate the dirt.

 

[Calappidae]

No, fromia and linckia are very specialized eaters. Like harlequin shrimp only eat starfish, certain nudibranches only eat sponges, Fromia and Linckia sp. starfish only eat invisible film algea. This algea is impossible to just buy and throw in the system, your best option is to wait another year or two for it to repopulate the tank (if it does at all) before consituring rebuying either species. It's one of those, if it runs out of it's main diet, it'll starve type situations.. and I'm suspecting the starfish, especially since you had both a linckia and fromia in the same tank competeing, that they finally ran out (seriously 7 years is a good run! Some claim a month is the best they got.)

How big is your tank exactly? Simply dirtying the tank won't do it for these starfish.

 

[Kahuna]

90g. What would be a good safe star for large clam, LPS, and SPS?