How can I get my sand sifting starfish to eat?

[ladyengineer]

I was having some algae problems and the guy at the lfs recommended a starfish for my tank. I bought the starfish, but when I got home and started reading up on it I realized that I have a coral sandbed in my main tank (only 29 gal) and that wouldn't work for this starfish. I already regret buying something I wasn't familiar with (so please don't comment on that), but I would like to give this starfish a chance and my lfs has a no return policy. I had a 1 inch sandbed on my quarintine tank. So I added another couple inches to the tank for the starfish. The problem is the tank is pretty new and there isn't anything for him to eat. He barried himself in the sand and hasn't moved. I tried putting some frozen all reef food (a misture of frozen food my lfs sells) uner him and he just left it there. Is there something I can feed him or should I try adding him to my established crushed coral substrate tank?
Thanks Everyone

 

[btldreef]

In a new tank, and a small tank, it's basically doomed to slowly starve to death. I had one for years, and finally got rid of it because I wanted a harlequin shrimp that would have eaten it.
You can try to coax it to eat with very small pieces of food on the sand bed, but it really needs a rich sand bed full of beneficial micro fauna.

 

[meowzer]

Someone told me once to place a small piece of food under the sand....Every few days I put scallop into the sand bed...you can probably use shrimp too....not too big, and soften it

 

[ladyengineer]

I think the starfish may haven eaten after all. The only fish I had in the quarantine tank with it disapeered and there isn't much in there except a couple live rock bolders, the starfish and the fish I had in there.