Question On A Sand Shifting Star

[reefermon]

I got a sandshifting starfish 2 days ago. I was under the impression that there stay in the sand bed I shut the light off and about two hours later i saw the sand shifter on the glass. Is it normal for the sandshifters to graze on the glass or is there something wrong with it. please advise...

 

[alyssia]

I don't know if they go on the glass or not.
How big is your tank? Sand sifters hardly every survive in captivity.

 

[chipmaker]

Its not unusual activity for a sand sifting star to go up on the glass, however its usually if they are looking for food.......or the sand bed is too small. It takes a pretty darn substantial tank thats rich in micro fauna to be able to keep the sand sifting stars or any other sand sifting critter happy and alive. Stars do require more of a sand bed than most sand sifting fish require. Not much you can feed em either to make up for lack of micro fauna.

 

[reefermon]

the tank is 150 i have a refugium on it and about 150 lbs of live sand. When i got home from work today he was in the sand?????

 

[chipmaker]

Should be sufficient if you have micro fauna. I really would not worry if it gets on the glass espeically if you just added the star, but one way or the other you'll know about 8 to 10 months down the road if you start to see its arms tips starting to atrophy off. As long as they have sufficient sand bed to cruise on and micro fauna to eat and the sg and ph is not out of wack they do just fine.
I have been keeping a typcial star that is ofund in florida waters for over 3 years now and its doing great. It was only about 1" across when I found it, and its now approx 3 inches across. IIRC the locals here call it a grass star......similar to a typical sand sifting star but mnore orange with short knobby tops similar to a bahama star, but not as high of a center section and the arms are rounded with no flat spots. They are very common in the Gulf of Mexico.