"This animal is very (95+ % IME) often doomed from the retailer to aquarists... having suffered too much damage and neglect in the process of collection, holding, shipping... Look for damage (ex. right) and avoid such obviously poor specimens. In the wild this is an algae, bacteria, detritus feeder... that needs space (hundreds of gallons) and mulm (muck, dirt, call it what you will, on the bottom of its system to survive. My advice, look to other genera, species of seastars."
Copied from article by Bob Fenner.