Reef - Sandsifting Star Good Or Bad Idea

[bgcook]

I have a mixed reef, primarly sps, with a 1-3 inch sand bed that is more for looks, not as a DSB. I have various clean up crews such as blue leg, scarlet, cumcumbers, serpent stars, coral banded, snails, etc.

i sometimes feel that my bed is not as clean as i would like. would sand sifting starfish be a good ideal in a reef???

this is for my 540gal.

thanks

[sassafrass]

A sand sifting star is a very bad idea , first it will eat all the creatures that make your sandbed work and then it will starve.

[bgcook]

that is kind of what if figured. i think i will likely get more sea cucumbers. i only have two and the area in which they are in seems to always be so clean.

thanks sassafrass

[plateboy3293]

I have one in my 120 gallon and its doing good it grew about 1in on each arm since I bought it. However I am not saying put one in your tank for I might just be one of the exceptions to the rule. Most people will say they are a bad idea ( as stated above) because they remove beneficial bacteria from the sand bed.

[jman77]

Bad.... it's "sifting" because it's looking for food eating all the lil critters ot comes across . ....

Get a cucumber for sand sifting....much more interesting to watch as well

[Reefer08]

What "lil critters" is it eating thats bad? Its a good scavenger I thought?

[FishNFun]

Originally posted by Reefer08
What "lil critters" is it eating thats bad? Its a good scavenger I thought?

It's eating all the micro fauna that makes your live sand "live". It will essentially make your live sand, dead sand and then it will starve to death. Unless you have an exceptionally large tank they should be left in the ocean (and even then it's questionable). I don't understand why many LFS sell them.

[wegotcrabs]

I agree with fishnfun

[snorvich]

I agree with both of the above posts. NOT a good idea.

[bgcook]

thank you.

[jstrong63]

The stars eat all beneficial fauna in the sand bed whereas the cucumber ingest the sand and poop out clean sand.

[jbird69]

What kind of water quality problems should I look for with a SS starfish in my sand bed? He has been there a long time, everything seems normal, how will I know if hes causing trouble? Now Im paranoid as I did not know this. At least a starfish will be the easiest thing I ever tried to "catch" in my tank.

Jay

[J.russell]

Originally posted by jbird69
What kind of water quality problems should I look for with a SS starfish in my sand bed? He has been there a long time, everything seems normal, how will I know if hes causing trouble? Now Im paranoid as I did not know this. At least a starfish will be the easiest thing I ever tried to "catch" in my tank.

Jay

Im with Jay. Ive had the same one in my last 2 tanks and hes about 6"- 7" from tip to tip and have a 3"-4" deep sand bed in my tank now.

[HookedonReef17]

i've learned from experience. He was doing great in my 120 FOWLR for a month growing every week then one morning he was dead. Waste of money. So many cooler things out there i now have a cucumber and he's 10 months old. Awesome creature!

[jbird69]

Originally posted by HookedonReef17
i've learned from experience. He was doing great in my 120 FOWLR for a month growing every week then one morning he was dead. Waste of money. So many cooler things out there i now have a cucumber and he's 10 months old. Awesome creature!

Ive had my star for 10 months. He only cost $9.99 so its hard to call it a waste of money IMHO. I thought I was complimenting my sand bed with him as I thought he would keep it stirred (which he does). I definitly didnt get him for looks cause hes ugly and I never see him. I would still like to hear somemore input on this subject before I get rid of him.

Jay

[mflamb]

I have 2 in my 300 that were in my 390 before that. Never had an obvious problem with them.

[str8salt]

I have a few questions. First, What are the cucumbers cleaning off of the sand? Also, What type do you have and are they sps or other coral safe. The lfs doesn't get many of them in. Does anyone have a picture of theirs so I can get the right type? Thanks

[AZDesertRat]

Very Bad! I tried one against the advice of all my friends ( I thought I knew more than they did?) and it completely wiped out my 5" 330 lb Southdown DSB in a few months. It never has come back to the way it once was and I would not want to see others go through what I did. It has taken countless cups of donated sand from friends tanks and bottles of Ocean Pods, reef stew and everything I can get to get things back to normal.

[rusty scupper]

i had a sand sifting star, it was sweet! would run all over then knock stuff over, the kids loved it, then it died, out of food!!!! BAD IDEA!!!

next question, will the mirco fauna ever come back? or do you have to add more sand>? i have 60 pounds of live sand in my 72 gallon tank, and i had that one star fish, now is that sand totally dead or should i add a small bag? would it hurt? will the fauna from a new bag spread and regenerate?

[DaveMorris]

I kept one in a 90g with a 3" sandbed for two years. As with so many of the critters we put in our tanks, it depends on quite a few factors as to whether or not he will kill your sand or die of starvation.

[jbird69]

I dont mean to beat a dead horse here, but, how can you tell if your sand bed is being depleted of its "life"?

My starfish is big and healthy, so it hasnt wiped out the life in my relativly small system in 10 months. Otherwise he would have starved (I assume)

One thing I have noticed is he does not penetrate very deep. He does not seem capable of crossing under my rock peninsula that bisects my tank. And the rock is set on top of the sand. I have to manually move him from one side to the other to get the sand stirred. My entire reef sits on top of 2" of sand. Its possible that he cant penetrate all that region and leaves it alone which keeps the sand bed thriving???? just thinking out loud....

Finally, I do not doubt any of the experiences posted above, I am curious however, how you can positively connect the problems in your tanks with the Sandsifting Starfish?

Thanks

Jay

[greenbean36191]

I dont mean to beat a dead horse here, but, how can you tell if your sand bed is being depleted of its "life"?

That depends on which species of star you get. The sand sifting stars in the hobby represent two different genera and probably a dozen or more species. All feed on sandbed infauna, but some are more specialized than others. A few will feed on just about any life they can catch (and yes, even some detritus), so you may see the macroscopic life like "pods" and worms in the sand decrease. Others are specialists on microscopic snails and arthropods that you will never notice missing unless you do a survey of your sandbed with a microscope.

The chemical signs that they've ruined your sandbed will come years down the road after it's "full" of accumulated waste.

My starfish is big and healthy, so it hasnt wiped out the life in my relativly small system in 10 months. Otherwise he would have starved (I assume)

There's no way to determine that a sea star (or most other inverts) are healthy. When they begin to starve they start cannibalizing themselves from the inside out. The damage usually only becomes apparent when it's far enough along that they start falling apart. They can drag this process out for around 12-18 months, so including the time it took them to initially deplete their food, they could potentially take almost 2 years to starve.

One thing I have noticed is he does not penetrate very deep. He does not seem capable of crossing under my rock peninsula that bisects my tank. And the rock is set on top of the sand. I have to manually move him from one side to the other to get the sand stirred. My entire reef sits on top of 2" of sand. Its possible that he cant penetrate all that region and leaves it alone which keeps the sand bed thriving???? just thinking out loud....

The star leaving that area alone won't keep the sandbed thriving because the infauna don't like it either. There's a phenomenon called the "edge effect" which is a fancy way of saying that infauna often avoids areas around hard surfaces. That gives you a sort of halo around the rocks and even the glass in your tank that's about an inch wide and will already have reduced diversity.

Finally, I do not doubt any of the experiences posted above, I am curious however, how you can positively connect the problems in your tanks with the Sandsifting Starfish?

As marine animals go, we actually know quite a bit about the diets of these sea stars empirically. Gut analysis of at least one species has even been used as a method of testing infaunal diversity. We know pretty clearly that they're voracious predators. While it's hard to positively link them to certain problems in our tanks, Occam's razor tells you that if you put a predator in the tank and then its prey start to decline, it's probably due to the predator.

[jbird69]

I am concluding that the experts have spoken enough to convince me here. I'll be losing the starfish this week.

Jay

[J.russell]

Yea me too. Glad Im tearing my tank down now haha. He will not be moving into the new fish house!

[prostaff]

Is a sand sifting GOBY a better choice?