Exploding starfish

[Rivus]

The LFS suggested a sand sifting seastar should be part of my CUC that I added last week. After a few days it shed a couple of legs, yesterday it pretty much exploded. There are only a few small blue legged hermits so it was self induced. Water parameters are: salinity 1.026, 78F, Ammonia and nitrites 0, nitrates 20. What happened?

 

[tdileo]

The LFS suggested a sand sifting seastar should be part of my CUC that I added last week. After a few days it shed a couple of legs, yesterday it pretty much exploded. There are only a few small blue legged hermits so it was self induced. Water parameters are: salinity 1.026, 78F, Ammonia and nitrites 0, nitrates 20. What happened?

Starfish are very sensitive creatures and need a slow drip acclimation with an absolute minimum of an hour or else you’re getting risky. Even if you do that perfectly, it’s no guarantee your LFS did it when they shipped in. If they are not slowly acclimated to changes, they will die.
What size tank do you have? Sand sifting starfish will eat all of your microfauna and then starve to death unless you have a large system, and I would not recommend them to most people. For sand sifters, nassarius snails, fighting conchs, and tiger tail cucumbers are much better choices.

 

[Rivus]

Starfish are very sensitive creatures and need a slow drip acclimation with an absolute minimum of an hour or else you’re getting risky. Even if you do that perfectly, it’s no guarantee your LFS did it when they shipped in. If they are not slowly acclimated to changes, they will die.
What size tank do you have? Sand sifting starfish will eat all of your microfauna and then starve to death unless you have a large system, and I would not recommend them to most people. For sand sifters, nassarius snails, fighting conchs, and tiger tail cucumbers are much better choices.

45 gallon. Nice to know now. My fault for not doing the research first. LFS guy seemed pretty knowledgeable so I took recommendation for the CUC. Will do due diligence before adding any other live stock. Thanks, Steve

 

[cristata.reef]

Most stars are very hard to keep. I'm lucky enough to have my two sand sifters survive for over 2 years now. I didn't know about their acclimation requirements when I got them but once again, I got VERY LUCKY. Usually I would go for a 3 hour drip for any sensitive invert. @tdileo is right, stars eat microfauna (especially tropical species). Mine will occasionally eat leftover mysis that the fish don't get but that is not enough to keep them alive on its own. I find that if you really want to keep stars your tank needs to be a little dirty, so I have a back corner with low flow where I let (and kinda encourage) all the nasties grow (bacteria, cyano, diatoms) and where the stars like to hang out a lot. (kind of risky tho since I have to make sure it doesn't spread)