Starfish Help!!

Hi,

Well, I'm totally ecstatic, but also very worried because I have NO idea what to do! I bought some new live rock yesterday and noticed tonight that I have a hitch hiker star fish. It is very small and white. How do I care for it? Will my scarlet hermit crabs eat it? Is it safe to have in my tank? I have 5 astrea snails, 4 scarlet hermits, one clown fish and one springer's damsel.

Any information about how to care for my new pet star fish and any other information would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you!!

 

thats a good sign, trust me there will be MANY more to come. They wont get much bigger than that if any, but every am when i get up i have to mag float the front of my tank bcs theres 100s of them.

Care for them is you dont need to do any thing!

 

Looks like a little astrina, can't really tell because of the lighting. They usually just fend for themselves.

 

Okay, cool! I am so excited. My fiance really wanted a fancy star fish, but after doing research I decided that they were too hard to take care of for beginners...but now we have a little one!! Hope it lives...!

Thanks for the replies!

 

It should do fine. When your tank hits about a year old you could get a sand sifting star. They are another no maintanence star fish and there much bigger.

 

Thanks for the suggestion! I will look those up online.

 

Pass on the sand sifting star since they eat only live things and will eventually starve to death. I made that mistake 5 years ago and still pay for it to this day. My established 5" DSB was wiped out in a matter of months, no spagheti worms, pods, smal snails, nothing survived. It looked like a wasteland and has never been the same to this day 5 years later.
I thought I knew better and everyone who tried to talk me out of it was wrong, boy was I mistaken!

 

I agree with Desert rat. I bought a sand sifter before I did my research. It was an impulse buy with my wife and kids. I only did the research after it was in the tank and realized it would turn my live sand bed into a dead sand bed. There was no way to find it because it was in the sand. A few days later I saw it on the glass, pulled him out and took it back.

Now I always do my research first.

 

Hitchhikers can be cool. I've seen many different opinions on keeping starfish. In my experience, which is only going on a year now, I've not had luck with stars. Sandsifter starved after about six months, serpent star disintegrated after about seven months and a red sea starfish just died one day. Right now I have a tiny tiny serpent star that hitchhiked in on a coral colony. BTW, what kind of pooch is in your avatar, it's sooo cute!!

 

I did some research on the sand sifting star and read that they commonly starve to death. So I'll pass on that! I'm fine with my little guy.

My avatar is Lily, she's a coton de tulear (related closely to the bichon). We poofed and spiked her hair all up for the picture. Haha. Here's another pic of her with my other dog, CoCo.