I just killed Linckia Sea Star - how?

[lost66]

My LFS had a delivery with red sea stars and I thought I can try. I read about handling with air, acclimatization process. So it took me an hour or so to introduce it to my tank. It sucked to the glass, climbed up and 2 fingers were exposed to the air. I moved it to the bottom but it went back. 2 days later it is dead.

What could go wrong? Assuming it was fine leaving LFS? My tank is pretty new but I have corals and fish there and everything is happy. Saturday was my water change day but everything is stable. If SPS are happy, how can a starfish be not happy?

 

[Tamberav]

They slowly die unless the tank is large and established. It died quickly but this is not uncommon as the stress in transit will kill it. It is probably nothing you did. It could just be something that happened between wherever it was collected in the wild and getting to the LFS.

You said the tank was new, so probably not worth trying another right now. There doesn't seem to be any consensus on what they eat and established live rock (enough of it) seems to be the key to their long term success. If you started with dry rock, I would honestly wait a few years. Some sources point to that they eat sponges and bacterial films.

 

[lost66]

Thanks for your assurance. I think I will try again next year.