Can't keep Sandsifting Star

[tugglife2]

For some reason, I can't seem to keep a sandsifting starfish alive. I've had three die on me. The water parameters are fine. The starfish seem to slowly get mushy and fall apart. Could this be due to high water temperature?

 

[stingrayjs]

The type of star you have is very hard to keep alive. The eat the good bacteria in your sand bed. once they run out of the they die, normaly they are a type of star you do not want in your tank. IMO

 

[bigarn]

What exactly is high water temp? What's the salinity? How do you acclimate them?

 

[n_sarno]

when you say it got mushy and fell apart sounds like you didnt acclimate long enough... Do you have a refractometer? Stars are very sensitive to changes in the salinity.. The only stars I've ever had long term sucess w/ are chocolate chip starfish in a FOWLR setup (they will eat your corals) or if you have a reef serpent stars are pretty hardy.. But any star needs to be acclimated VERY VERY VERY slowly!!

 

[saltn00b]

what size tank ? he could have cleaned your sand bed out and starved. you should answer everyone's questions

 

[shelley]

I've had one almost a year with no problems. I have a 2.5 inch sand bed at deepest point. A few of his legs broke off awhile back, but they're growing back. I didn't realize they were hard to keep.

 

[ophiura]

Several things we must know (though I DO NOT recommend buying this animal).
1) specific gravity is critical. What is "fine" for fish can be fatal for these animals. If it is less than 1.025-1.026, IMO, it is a problem.
2) If the animals die within a month of introduction, this is acclimation shock. They need pretty long acclimations.
3) If they die in 6 months to say 18 months, it is starvation. These animals can not be spot fed in most cases, so many (possibly the majority) will starve in about a year. They will eat the beneficial animals in a sand bed, and starve. They start to disintegrate, which is often mistaken for predation, but the arms just start falling apart. Prior to this they show no signs of trouble. Now in a large enough tank with enough sand surface area (relatively less LR), they may be OK...but most will not, and they are not doing anything good anyway.

 

[bsd230]

might be temp or might be they are starving. They like a fairly deep sand bed. I have one sand sifter star that I have had for about 3 months, seems to be doing great. My temps usually run about 80 at its peak and 78 at its low. I have about a 2.5" deep sand substrate. As with all inverts they don't like nitrates.