Hello! Haven't been very active on r2r as a whole but I took a quick look at the forum yesterday. Here are some main points and observations I've made between my inactivity and today:
I have a separate tank (a family member's tank). There were complications with a different separate tank I was going to set up for myself, as it was a school tank and I have yet to receive word on its funding. My only issue is this family member would need some persuading and keeps a high bioload tank with kessil a80s, although the tank is pretty shallow (less than 12inches) so I imagine PAR would be slightly better. I just need a source for *a* frag before I can get to growing, so I'm going to stop by a big box pet store that has gotten pocillopora damicornis in before and see how they are with coral shipments
You are running into the part of why people dont keep coral eating stars. It is very hard to keep up with, if you dont have a coral frag tank constantly growing the food for the star. Odds are you do not need this exact species. Id put my dollar that it would eat any stylo, birdsnest as well. And it is by no means affordable to buy small frags to feed it snacks. These stars can eat ALOT of coral. Id be willing to bet, if you had a colony of stylo, probably 6-7 inches tall, and 6-8 inches wide, it wouldnt last this star a week. And that colony would take months to grow that size, if not a year.
Well aware, but I wasn't under the impression of the star being a coral eater when I got it. The post I made asking for its ID was a post I made because I thought it would be a difficult star to ID. Chances are, if I donate it to any of my LFSs, I'm confident they won't provide for this sea star.
Oh you are for sure right, they wont care for it. It will just waste away and die.
Which isn't to say they don't care about animals. It's costly to provide for this sea star (also not to say I'm the best caregiver for this sea star) and they don't really have any incentives for caring for this sea star as nobody will want it. This sea star was shipped from the other side of the world, so I have no choice but to try to care for it until the end of its lifespan, even if I have to sacrifice some coral for it.
I'm confident that this sea star could be having a better life, but the most I can do right now is make a plan to get as close to that better life as possible. I'm going to see if I can get any pocilloporidae family coral and grow it out in the mentioned tank. If it fares well, I will take a small chunk and feed it to the sea star every now and then depending on its growth. As my situation is right now, it's better than nothing.
Thats a very good philosophy to have, But i think the right course of action is to start your own coral farm LOL.
Honestly, I’m not sure. You might be able to ask around on the forum here and see if someone has some overgrowing their tank right now that you could take off their hands; similarly, there are always a few reefers who have to trim their corals back and get rid of the frags because their tanks are at capacity - a lot of these are literally willing to just give their frags away since the other option is to trash them. Beyond that, local reefers are probably your best bet for cheap frags.
