Starfish for reef tank

[Naiad]

I'm a big fan of serpent stars, but they aren't out and about all the time. I currently have a nice Ophioderma cinereum specimen that's usually in hiding - until food hits the water, that is. Then it's out of the rockwork right quick and foraging for awhile to track down scraps. I hand feed it occasionally to encourage it to come out. It's not anything spectacular to look at (just a muted pink/red), but it's still a neat creature. I think the "aesthetics" of a harlequin serpent (Ophioderma appressum) would be more generally appealing with their alternating black and white bands.

My harlequin is beautiful but shy until it is feeding time. Some species can be trained to come out during daylight with time. I had an unknown sp of bristle that appeared to be a sand sifter and he never left his home under the rock...

 

[shred5]

Sand stars need a big tank or they starve and you never see them anyway.
Serpent stars get big and dangerous and hide all the time
Other than the smaller brittle stars they get big and bad too.. I have had one in my sump for 7 years. Another one you dont see.

Fromia milleporella I have two of these and they stay small and are reef safe. They are way slow and are out almost all the time.. They are bright so you can not miss them.

 

[Chris Aldrich]

In addition to F. milleporella @shred5 mentioned, there are other stars in the genus Fromia worth looking at, too. Such as F. monilis, F. indica, and others.

 

[Faraday]

I've heard the "common" seastar (Echinaster sentus) is a good choice and a few vendors have them.

http://www.kpaquatics.com/product/common-starfish/

 

[cameronh]

I've heard the "common" seastar (Echinaster sentus) is a good choice and a few vendors have them.

http://www.kpaquatics.com/product/common-starfish/

I catch these all the time, I have the brown with tan spots and a red eye looking thing.

 

[evolved]

Echinaster is okay-ish; a bit more difficult than fromia but hardier than linckia.

 

[Culater94]

I have one of these, has been mostly a model citizen although has gotten very large and seems to be starting to get a bit more aggressive at feeding time.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=497+528+575&pcatid=575

 

[Mark_C]

I did a lot of starfish research a year and a bit back. This is what I recall through reading and speaking to experienced folks. Might not be 100% accurate, but I'm pretty sure I'm remembering properly...

Sand sifting stars will kill everything in your sand bed then die, they're voracious eaters. They also have potential to disturb your rockwork as they will hunt the bottom of the tank along the base of the rocks.

Serpent and brittle stars are fun and very mobile but they do look serpent like and can get big. They're easy to take care, tolerate differing parameters, and are a pet in their own right. A good general rule of thumb for these guys is to avoid the green ones (they hunt your livestock). If you do an online search you can see some vids of them coming out at feeding time, some to the extent that they can pretty much be hand fed. I recently adopted one of these with no legs and am hoping to get it back up and crawling.

Red and Blue linkias are more traditional starfish. Blues are harder to maintain than reds. They need to be in a well established and stable tank, where they'll prowl the live rock and glass. If you drop them into a young (less than a year) tank their chance of survival is practically nil - they may survive a month or two but then will start to die and fragment. They're not very active but nice to look at. I skipped on a blue (too risky) and dropped a red into my mixed reef. My parameters are very stable, I feed well, supplemented with phytoplankton, and I seed copepods every once in a while. They also eat astrina stars. Its been in just over a year and it seems to be doing well. Mind you, it hasn't grown much but it hasn't shrunk either. I may have gotten lucky or it may start dying tomorrow. In a well established tank its still a crap shoot with them.

I also have a tiger pistol shrimp and 2 cleaner shrimp in the tank and there's never been a worry. If you have a harlequin shrimp its a problem, as they exclusively eat starfish.
I did have an emerald crab that would nibble on corals a bit, when I caught him nibbling on the star he was banished to the sump.

Hope this helps.

 

[kozzy]

A bit late but anyway is have my sand sifting star in a 48 gallon and haven't had any problems. Hes been in there for a year and sometime I forget about him until I see him every once in a while. Lol right now he's missing a leg but crawling around fine

 

[Coralfornialiving]

Your talking about the blue or red ones right? Those are difficult to care for and most of the time just disintegrate after a few months. Some have managed to keep them for a year or so, but they eventually die. The rest arn't reef safe.

Had a red and orange both disintegrated and died eventually. Good to know i wasnt the only one

 

[jason2459]

I've heard the "common" seastar (Echinaster sentus) is a good choice and a few vendors have them.

http://www.kpaquatics.com/product/common-starfish/

This. I was going through the thread and looking to see if anyone mentioned KP Aquatics. I just got two in last week. There's been a few others that have reported good success with them.

 

[Mirya]

+1 on the serpents. I have a two. And +1 on KP Aquatics. I've gotten a variety of live rock and livestock from them and have always been happy.

One of my serpents is a green banded -- not sure on the species, all I know is it is Atlantic. He hides until I feed then waves his arms greedily until I give him a tidbit.

The other is a Harlequin. He thinks he hides during the day, but honestly most of him is usually exposed. Kinda like an ostrich sticking his head under the sand.