Sand Dollar Care??

[rjestrada]

I was interested in purchasing sand dollars and keeping them in my reef aquarium. My LFS could not tell me how to take care of these guys and I could not find any information on the web regarding sand dollar care. Does anyone know how to take care of sand dollars? Are they difficult to care for? Are they reef safe? Do they have any special needs? All those good questions!!

 

[spanko]

Quote from Wet Web Media.
"<These echinoids are kept (used to collect them myself as a job in college) for science and demonstration purposes... and have seen various species displayed in public aquariums... Would likely live in a well-established reef with deep, fine substrate, good circulation, a vigorous, large refugium. Bob Fenner> "
"Our local common Californian Sand Dollar Dendraster exocentricus feeds almost exclusively on suspended particles, particularly diatoms."
From my reading they are urchins, burrow in the sand eating whatever they find down there.

 

[ophiura]

I discourage keeping them in home tanks.
They need a very deep sand bed. They often need a PARTICULAR type of substrate particle size and even silicious or calcareous. You won't necessarily see much of them. There are animals much better at keeping sand beds - in short there is a good reason, in my opinion, you don't see them often and people don't know much about them.
I have seen them in captivity in basically species specific tanks in public aquaria - and even then, only the cold water species.
Any time you see such specific needs - a deep fine substate and well established large refugium - it indicates that their lives in most systems would be marginal and probably they would not survive long term.

 

[floridacatfish]

I had a pet sand dollar.... many, many years ago when CC and undergravel filters were the best of care for SW tanks. It did WONDERFULLY till I went on vacation and my LFS owner who I paid to watch my tanks forgot to feed it.

I didn't intend to get a sand dollar for my tank at the time, but we went SCUBA diving and one of the guys picked it up and gave it to me when we got back to dock. I didn't want to throw it back in the water there (oil/gas/nasty water), so I tried putting it in my tank. It survived a 13 hour drive and proceeded to grow and florish in my tank. I used sinking pellets to feed it and it would hover over them. It actually was very hardy.

 

[ophiura]

How long did you have the sand dollar? If at least a year, you may have had success with it. A year is the standard time frame.
Do you know it ate the pellets? Most are very selective in particle size preferences. So it may have "moved" the pellet, but would not likely have eaten it until maybe it completely dissolved. Did it come out of the crushed coral to eat?
I don't think it starved in a few days though, I would expect most to take much longer to starve to death (much like seastars). So I don't think it was the LFS guy necessarily...or at least not due to feeding it. The other advantage of both crushed coral and the undergravel is that a lot of detritus could collect between the particles, which might work to some level.
You would need to know what species you have, and what particle size you have. A classic paper on US sand dollars along the gulf coast is here:
www.biolbull.org/cgi/reprint/171/1/197.pdf
(The two common sand dollars the US East Coast are the Mellita and Leodia mentioned. In Florida, this is probably Leodia). As an idea, 400 microns is about .015 inches.
BTW, "live" sand dollars tend to be less familiar to most people than the white skeletons that people are used to, they are covered with very tiny fine spines that make it look like a furry plate.

 

[sharkbait9]

Originally Posted by ophiura
http:///forum/post/2856772
I discourage keeping them in home tanks.
They need a very deep sand bed. They often need a PARTICULAR type of substrate particle size and even silicious or calcareous. You won't necessarily see much of them. There are animals much better at keeping sand beds - in short there is a good reason, in my opinion, you don't see them often and people don't know much about them.
I have seen them in captivity in basically species specific tanks in public aquaria - and even then, only the cold water species.
Any time you see such specific needs - a deep fine substate and well established large refugium - it indicates that their lives in most systems would be marginal and probably they would not survive long term.
I agree w/ ophiura. sand dollars have very little info on care due to the fact that they are not a "common species" to keep. As far as we have come in this hobby, the hobby itself is still in the infancy stage. The hobby is more focused on equipment first then species care last.
There are the rare occasion that some keepers are able to keep &#8220;X species&#8221; for a &#8220;long time&#8221; But that alone begs the question, what is a long time for &#8220;X species &#8220;? Was that &#8220;long time&#8221; the &#8220;X species &#8221; life expectance? Did &#8220;X species &#8221; live a full and healthy life? Was it thriving and not just living?
As a keeper and hobbyist we do have a responsibility to know and properly care for &#8220;X species&#8220;.
I’m not saying don’t try, cause honestly if we don’t we will never know the who’s and the how’s.
That being said, one needs to research as much as one can and exhaust all outlets before attempting to house and care for &#8220;X species&#8221;
Once the decisions is made to take on that responsibility, a journal w/photos would be the best idea to record the care and reaction of &#8220;X species &#8220;
Preparing oneself for the onslaught of ridicule and naysayer and having your observations torn apart by speculation and none believers.
First talk to floridacatfish, he stated he kept one and feed it sinking pellets, talk and find out what he did. Again information is the best you can do before buying one. Don’t just run into the fire, walk in with knowledge.
If you truly want to keep one for your own self pleasure, don’t do it, it’s a road that’s headed for failure.

 

[florida joe]

I am not so sure abut in the home aquarium Ophuria would be the expert on that but all of the sand dollars I have encountered were on the sandy bottom or just below it in fact while snorkeling over a sand bar here in the gulf I encountered a group of them &#8220;standing&#8221; on end half out of the sand half in. after enquiring I found out that they will in fact feed that way

 

[ophiura]

Originally Posted by rjestrada
http:///forum/post/2856747
I was interested in purchasing sand dollars and keeping them in my reef aquarium. My LFS could not tell me how to take care of these guys and I could not find any information on the web regarding sand dollar care. Does anyone know how to take care of sand dollars? Are they difficult to care for? Are they reef safe? Do they have any special needs? All those good questions!!
I suppose another perspective is "why" as in, do you especially want to set up a tank specifically to keep sand dollars? You might be able to do that, in fact I would be you could do it, but that is what it would be. If you want to add them to a regular tank with a bunch of other stuff, then I would say don't. Another factor is that they get relatively large, and if you have a fair amount of rock in the tank, they won't have much area to move. In a sand dollar tank, I would have a wide footprint (eg a square tank) with a deep sand bed and more specifics based on the species I hoped to keep.
Encope ( which would have no holes in it) might rather like crushed coral overall, for example. So it would just take some study on species and substrate and typical habitat and going from there. That can likely be done.
But as another thing to add to a typical reef? Like horseshoe crabs, I just don't think it is a good plan. Horseshoe crabs are crazy easy to keep - in a species tank. In our reef tanks, they tend to be rather short lived. Sand dollars, I think, would be similar in this regard.

 

[floridacatfish]

It's been 15 yrs + but I do remember him (it) moving towards the pellets when they were put in. It would actually move pretty fast towards the pellets. Maybe if we had a sandy substrate it would have been different cause remember we had an undergravel filter. But there was most definately movement towards the pellets.
We had him for 2+ yrs, watched him grow in size. Did he double, triple in size? I can't tell you the percentage, but he did grow. Maybe 2-2.5" in diameter of growth. There were no signs that he wouldn't have continued to do well.
When we went on vacation for - don't rememeber exactly how long (it's been 15+ yrs!) - we came back to a sand dollar that had the brown layer gone on 1/2 his body, he moved some, and we tried to nurse him back to health. Sadly he didn't make it. But there was such a change in that one week (maybe 10 days) and none of the other fish were changed. The LFS guy told us he didn't follow our feeding pattern. When nothing else changed in the tank & the tank was mature, I have a hard time believing it wasn't the change in feeding pattern that killed him.
If you want to try it ... I'll tell you what we had back then. Please remember this was standard for tanks back then, doesn't mean I recommend it now. It worked for over 2 years for us. 55g - it was a FOWLR. CC bed 1" with undergravel filter. I think we used IO salt. We fed sinking pellets, I think it was every day 2 of them. What species it was ... I don't know. We got it off of Panama City, FL. I don't know if we have any photos of the sand dollar. I'm divorced from my husband, so I'd have to see if he has any or can remember any details.
Does this mean someone else will have success in raising a sand dollar? I don't know. All I can do is offer what experience I have as you all have for me in my re-entry into this world.

 

[floridacatfish]

It might be easier for me to quote ophiura and add my comments to each question.....
Originally Posted by ophiura
http:///forum/post/2856891
How long did you have the sand dollar? If at least a year, you may have had success with it. A year is the standard time frame.
2+ years, 2-2.5" in diameter growth
Originally Posted by ophiura
http:///forum/post/2856891
Do you know it ate the pellets? Most are very selective in particle size preferences. So it may have "moved" the pellet, but would not likely have eaten it until maybe it completely dissolved. Did it come out of the crushed coral to eat?
I don't "know" that he ate the pellets, but there was an increase in his speed and change in movement when I put them in the tank. Did he wait till they were dissolved to obtain the nutrients? Possibly, probably. I didn't pick him up to see how he ate. He wouldn't bury himself too far in the CC, might have been different if we had sand or a finer substrate.
Originally Posted by ophiura
http:///forum/post/2856891
I don't think it starved in a few days though, I would expect most to take much longer to starve to death (much like seastars). So I don't think it was the LFS guy necessarily...or at least not due to feeding it. The other advantage of both crushed coral and the undergravel is that a lot of detritus could collect between the particles, which might work to some level.
I answered this in the above post. No other changes to a well established tank, all the other fish were fine. The LFS guy told us he didn't put the pellets in. He watched the change over a period of days - 7 to 10 don't remember exactly.
I wonder if the difference was the CC ... I don't remember it burying itself, it was a surface eater as far as I could tell.
Originally Posted by ophiura
http:///forum/post/2856891
You would need to know what species you have, and what particle size you have. A classic paper on US sand dollars along the gulf coast is here:
www.biolbull.org/cgi/reprint/171/1/197.pdf
(The two common sand dollars the US East Coast are the Mellita and Leodia mentioned. In Florida, this is probably Leodia). As an idea, 400 microns is about .015 inches.
BTW, "live" sand dollars tend to be less familiar to most people than the white skeletons that people are used to, they are covered with very tiny fine spines that make it look like a furry plate.
He was a purplish brown, velvet-like. I'll try to find a pic.

 

[florida joe]

I am in no way advocating the keeping of sand dollars but if you are going to keep them remember that bacteria coat the particulate detritus that accumulates in and on the substraight and populated by various types of microscopic animals used by filter feeders but it has to be kept in the water column as a major food source so unless you are going to stir your sand bed to suspend the particulate you may want to include something like a sand sifting goby to provide a regular input of detritus into the water column

 

[ophiura]

Floridacatfish - no doubt, definite success. It is interesting it responded to the pellets. I am not sure that sand dollars are really considered scavengers which it would have to be if it responded so.
It would still be odd though for it to have died so quickly just from the 10 days or so, that would seem it was pretty fine line. That would indicate offhand that it wasn't surviving well in the system itself...I don't mean that in a bad way. But it is a very fine line for something that is basically eating organic matter in the sand in the wild. Perhaps there was some sort of other thing (additive, salinity), too long to know. It wouldn't surprise me if the crushed coral/undergravel may have helped in some way. I had a similar set up and there was lots of detritus - and a lot of things that survived very well in the crushed coral.
Would be cool if you had a picture. Definitely interested in seeing what species it was (basically no holes, 5 holes or 6 holes)

 

[fdragonhart]

I found ten sand dollars at the beach and they survived trip ..brought back big bucket of sand for them. What are sinking pellets? Are they fish food substance and tell me how to set up their tank....really excited about this and want to do it right. have a blessed day.

 

[mr. limpid]

Sorry to say this thread is 4 years old and ophiura hasn't been on this site in 2 years and florida joe is awall. But if you read the earlier posts these creatures are best left in the ocean they feed of special foods not sold in LFS or on line. The only true way to care for these creatures is to have a deep sand bed of at least 4inches, from the ocean you found them in, hard to say what size tank you'll need to keep 10 alive and to change out the top inch of sand once a year with true live sand from the ocean from which you found them in

 

[mr. limpid]

sorry Joe I didn't check B4 I typed, you were on 2 days ago. How are you doing, are you running the mile yet.