STARFISH

[Almondsaz]

Does anyone have any suggestions on a starfish to keep in a reef tank that is on the smaller side?

 

[Fishieness]

what size are we talking. a brittle or serpent star could be kept if you feed them, but they get quite large.

 

[Almondsaz]

I was trying to see if there was one that got no bigger than 8 inches. Are all starfish essentially reef friendly?

 

[jojo22]

NOT ALL!!! Some do fine others would be very very bad like the CC starfish

 

[Fishieness]

I was trying to see if there was one that got no bigger than 8 inches. Are all starfish essentially reef friendly?

there are a few species that are reef safe that dont get large. however, they need lots of live rock with lots of macro and micro fauna to survive, which you cannot usualy keep in a smaller tank. so i was wondering how big of a tank do you have?

 

[Almondsaz]

I have a small tank...45 gallon.

 

[Gildurath]

I have a 55g tank. I have a burgundy and a brown serpent star. They are about 6" across and are about 5 years old. They eat shrimp pellets that I put in the tank, they ingest them whole. It looks very freaky and I try to make them very small. They also eat any mysis shrimp I inject into the stream that they get ahold of. I have 70ish lbs of LR, they love it and climb and move all over the place. They do not move things or turn up the sand at all.

 

[Almondsaz]

Do they ever get out of the tank? A LFS told me he doesnt' carry them becuase the escape and you find them on the floor. I thought that was only octopus.

 

[Reefscape]

i suppose you could look at it from another point of view...if a tank is not covered, anything has a possibility of making the great escape from the tank if it so desires....

 

[Gildurath]

Mine have never tried to climb out. I am not sure they could either. They do not seem to do well when they mistake the side of the aquarium for LR.