Happy sand sifting sea star

Interested in putting one in my system after at least one year of maturation in a 150G tank, i'm wondering the success it would be if its in a 2" only sand bed. Anyone with that kind of sand bed and with good success?

 

I have one in my 250 that I have had for 2-3 years (I moved it from my original talk to the 250 last November). I have about 1-2 inches of sand, and it is doing great.

 

Thanks i was affraid 2" sand wouldn't enough.

 

I would suggest not adding a sand sifting star. In my opinion, these are one of those animals that are best left in the ocean. Unless you plan to periodically repopulate the fauna in your sand, the starfish will probably exhaust it and eventually starve to death. This is especially true if you have any other sand sifters in the tank. I had one for about two years that finally starved and I don't feel that my sand bed has ever recovered.

 

I thought it only ate detritus and food residu, you mean it feed also on your bacteria as well.

 

It will eat pods, worms, and other small invertebrates from your sand. Most of these critters are considered beneficial. My experience is that it will feed faster than the populations can recover. At least that was my experience in my 135 gallon.

 

+1 to this. They eat the microcrustaceans that inhabit the sand bed. They will quickly devour a system and slowly starve to death. Regrettably we did not learn this until after the fact when ours disappeared into the sand after a year, never to be seen again.

FWIW, we had about a 4 inch sand bed.

 

Interesting opposite experience from me. I am not doubting you, but definately interesting. I wonder if mine is doing well because I have such a large sand bed? My tank is a 250 deep dimension - so it is 5 ft x 3 ft wide, and I only have the one sea star in there. My last tank was a 100 gallon custom tank that was 4 ft x 3 ft....so he has always had plenty to eat. I feel like my mico fauna is still well established - you can see worms, etc. in the sand if you look real close. I am all about not putting in something that will not last....so this is suprising to me.

 

Could be that the size of your tank allows everything time to repopulate. Mine lived for over two years in mine and I thought everything was good. Then it deteriorated quickly and my sandbed was wiped out. I will add that I had a diamond goby during the same period that helped in this endeavor. It wasted away and died around the same time.

 

Either that or it just hasn't starved yet.They usually do eventually.A fighting Conch does just as good a job as do nassarius and at least you see them once in a while. Sand sifters belong in the ocean imo along with most other starfish.
If they do die under the sand it can cause mayhem.