Blue Linkia starfish

[Shilpan Patel]

Hey guys!2.5 year old 105 gallon softie tank with refugium. Occupants are boxer shrimp, hermit crab, sailfin tang, clownfish, chromis, bullet sandsifter goby and scooter dragonet.
I was looking to add some fish that add some colour to my tank. Can’t get anymore tangs, and don’t want wrasses due to my scooter dragonet...

So I happened upon some linkia starfish today in the LfS and I’m researching them at the moment. How do we quarantine them?

 

[eatbreakfast]

Fairy and flasher wrasses won't compete with a dragonet for pods.

Blue linlia are a pretty difficult starfish. They need a large, well established system. They are sensitive to swings in water parameters, and can't have meds used.

To qt one it would need to be in a fishless system for 80 days.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Wait I missed this completely. Fairy and flasher wrasses won’t pod hunt and compete with the dragonet? Don’t all wrasses hunt for pods?

Ahh...and I’m guessing 80 days in a relatively new quarantine tank won’t go down very well with the linkia...which means many people just throw it into their tank then? Guess I’ll give that a miss, no way am I going through a potential fallow again.

 

[eatbreakfast]

Wait I missed this completely. Fairy and flasher wrasses won’t pod hunt and compete with the dragonet? Don’t all wrasses hunt for pods?

Ahh...and I’m guessing 80 days in a relatively new quarantine tank won’t go down very well with the linkia...which means many people just throw it into their tank then? Guess I’ll give that a miss, no way am I going through a potential fallow again.

Fairy and flasher wrasses eat from the water column, so do not hunt the benthic copepods dragonets rely on.

Correct, a blue linkia would not do well through a qt process.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Thank you for your help as always eatbreakfast it is very much appreciated.
Well my LFS currently has a hoevens wrasse and carpenters wrasse and blue sides fairy wrasse in stock so I’ll do some more research into those. Never seen a hoevens wrasse before we don’t commonly get it here in New Zealand.

Thank you kindly

 

[eatbreakfast]

Thank you for your help as always eatbreakfast it is very much appreciated.
Well my LFS currently has a hoevens wrasse and carpenters wrasse and blue sides fairy wrasse in stock so I’ll do some more research into those. Never seen a hoevens wrasse before we don’t commonly get it here in New Zealand.

Thank you kindly

Hoevans wrasse is a Halichoeres species, so will compete for pods.

Carpenters and blue sided are fine.

 

[saltyhog]

Like TJ said blue linkia really need a large,mature aquarium. That said they can be hardy in that setting. I kept one for ~5 years. Very beautiful starfish but a little cryptic. They can also get fairly large.

 

[Shilpan Patel]

Wow that looks so cool! Yeah I think I’ll give it a pass for now. Once I add either a scribbled rabbitfish or 1 of those wrasses I’ve completed my stocking list for my tank. So I am leaving SeaChem cuprisorb in my QT, changing all the media and I’m gonna start focusing on corals. If I keep that quarantine tank running with heaps of corals maybe it’ll become stable eneough and grow enough film algae to host the linkia in a year or so. I shall see what happens.

 

[User]

No need for 80 day QT on a linkia- starfish font host trophonts.

That’s from Humblefishes Invert QT thread.

But anyway- no go unless its s very mature and stable tank. Cool to look at but hard to keep