Chocolate Chip Starfish

Are chocolate chip starfish reef safe? Also what other starfish are nice looking and reef safe?

Are there any special requirements for starfish...?

Thanks!

 

From what I have heard, NO. lol

 

The only problem with starfish is that you cannot target feed them. You should not keep more than 2 in your tank because they won't have enough food in the long run. Good reefsafe starfish are marble/formia, linckia and sandshifting.

 

Linkia are very neat looking....however, only very large, well-established tanks can support them (we don't even know what they eat)

Fromia are neat looking. They require excellent water chemistry, must be acclimated very slowly, SG 1.025~1.026 and the SG should remain stable.

Brittle stars come in many shapes and sizes. Bright green and bright yellow ones are fish hunters and should be avoided. Even the less colorful ones can be fish hunters if not target fed on occasion.

Sand sifting stars require very large, well-established tanks too. They are very efficient hunters and will empty all non-bacterial life out of a sandbed and then starve.

 

the irony being that the chocolate chip is very easy to feed
I had one in a mostly FOWLR - no coral and fed it half a green mussel every other week for 12 - 15 months - it grew very large

so I often wonder, how I overlooked it, when I made the desicion to coral up the tank
and found bald patches on my GSP (which later grew back)

the chocolate chip is not reef safe as it will ingest things like soft corals IME

Steve

 

wow...it sounds like starfish are hard to keep!

 

not really. i have a large brown brittle that is healthy, had him for 7-8 months now.

 

Those Linckia starfish look really nice....The orange one especially!