squirting my sand (for sandsifting star fish)

i made the mistake of buying a sandsifting star fish without doing some research first.what is going to happen to my tank if this thing dies,and can squirt something like cyclopeeze or something along those lines. its doing good rightknow but i only have a 30 gallon tank with about 2 inches of sand.Thanks JOE

 

I have a sandsifter. They come recommended for the larger tanks. I do not know about them dying and secreting anything. Thirty gallons is too small for a sandsifter IMO. When I have aquascaped, I have had to find mine by lightly running my finger through the very top layer of sand (don't go too deep) and you will find him soon enough. Either that or wait it out a week or so until you see him. I see mine about once weely. then grab him, put him in the sump and take him back to the LFS on your next trip. You can always feed him a small amount of food in the sump. They will take it.

 

thank you for the response,i see mine all the time he is pretty active,the 2 problems i have are i dont have a sump yet,i am kinda scared of a sump with whole over flow thing.the other thing is all of my LFS will not take anything back and i mean anything,i dont have a good LFS every body either dont know a thing or they think they know every thing and will sell fish the shouldnt even be sold i fish stores,and DeathCo is way to exspensive.Average price for a dwarf blue hermit crab is 4.99 and thats the size of a dime and snails are the same price and they are they small ones also.maybe i should just sell this thing.Thanks Agian JOE

 

i know they eat bugs and whatnot in the sandbed, but you could try feeding it other things like meaty stuff or the coclypeeze might work. i would try a bunch of different things untill you see him eating, who knows you might have success in such a small tank.

 

i feel bad i bought this thing so far i have done good until this little mess up

 

hey thats allright, we all have to make a mistake sooner or later in the hobby, just gotta hope for the best

heck ive been doing this for almost 4 or 5 years and i still make mistakes!

 

dont kick yourself too much for that...however I would get rid of it. Trade it back to the store or something because in a 30g tank he will run out of food for sure.

I had one in a 75g tank and about 5 months or so after I had him, I came home one day seeing the sandsifter out of the sand and its back arched and on each tip of its legs. I contacted the store and was told that it is "fishing" that it is starved and is waiting for a fish to swim under it so he could kill it. I took him back right then.

I have thought about getting one for my 135g however I think eventually he would run out there also. I did feed mine little pieces of krill everyonce in a while but I dont think he had enough still

 

how really??? i have a 46 bow front with a sand sifter and had him for a while...he eats littles worms in the sand and i still see them there in the sandbed...he also eats spaghetti worms, to bad i really liked them, also i got to the beach and get little sand fleas for treats once in a while...Do people really have that much trouble keeping them?

 

They slowly starve in most people's tanks. You need a large tank with an established sandbed to keep them long-term.

 

Weird

I have had my sand sifting starfish for a while now I have a 16g bowfront. I also have fish and many corals, I feed it plankton and usually let a little bit of pellets fall on the floor for the star fish. Its fine to my suprise it was climbing all over my rocks last night which I found it odd.

A couple days ago climbing the walls it got stuck to the power head suction and lost 2 of its legs I am wondering if it rebuilds them. Does anyone know?