starfish

[Liberty_Girl]

Ok, I went to 2 different fish stores that carry saltwater fish, live rock, ect. One store had some wonderful looking starfish for pretty reasonable prices. Are star fish hard to keep?

I was also looking at the live rock. If I buy live rock that has already been cured, do I have to cure it again before putting it in my tank? And what is good live rock supposed to look like?

- the internet elf

 

[KahluaZzZ]

I don't have starfish but they're supposed to be intolerant of suddent water parameters. Some need to be fed manually. If i buy one, i'll probably go with an orange sea star 'cause they're easier. Don't handle them out of the water.

I got screwed with non-cured Live Rock altough the guy at the store told me it was cured. Look at those pics http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/scateg.cfm?siteid=24&pCatId=393&TopCatId=393
and i you find something that looks like that, you're lucky.

I had to wait a month before adding other livestock, 'cause the Live Rock had some die-off..( animals or plants that didn't made it ) and it boosted my ammonia ..wich is toxic. Had to wait until the ammonia was gone.

 

[Liberty_Girl]

Thanks for the pics! The live rock looked like figi. It was purple. I didn't know there were different kinds. Is one kind better than the other?

Thanks a bunch for your help

- the internet elf

 

[KahluaZzZ]

Well i think it depend on what look you wanna have.
Some types are less dense than others, have weird shapes, different stuff outside or inside. Some rocks have purple coralline, other have pink, sometime green or yellow. Tonga branch are cool if you wanna have a tree like section in your tank, or just a place were little fish can hide. Even in fiji, there's fiji premium wich is usually supposed to be better and often all covered with coralline.
If you want to spend less on LR ( livre rock ) , you can use base rock a.k.a reef rock for the bottom of the tank...or for places where the light isn't strong and mix the base rock with live rock. It will be like live rock in a while, if your live rock is filled with critters and coralline.

If a guy at the store tells you that the live rock is cured and you can see it in a big tank with brown water, lot of current and it smells, chances are the he's lying.

The LR you saw was purple...good sign..was it fully colored ?

- I'm only a 5 month veteran a.k.a a noob but i had the same questions couple of months ago.

 

[Liberty_Girl]

It was in a 175 gallon tank. The water was clear. From what I could see there was not a lot of current. No, it wasn't fully colored. It also had a little patch of yellow. It looked like sponge. Is that possible?

- the internet elf

 

[KahluaZzZ]

yes i could be. But there is yellow coralline. I have a little piece on a tonga branch where my toadstool is attached. I wish i had more. If it looks like the purple coralline it could be the yellow one.
I had 2 big sponges and they were light brown/yellow when i bought some LR. But when they were transfered they die. It takes a lot of time to actually see that they're dead..but sponges cannot live when they are pulled out of the water. When they put the rock into bags, they don't put some water with it. So the rock will only be with the water trapped inside it..
Now i have hundreds of tiny sponges, very common, but not interesting big ones. They survived the ride 'cause they were surely in a cavity of the rock where there was a little water left i guess.

 

[1979camaro]

as far as starfish go, some are easy, some are hard, and some will kill your other inverts/fish so it is hard to give a blanket statement

brittlestars, sand sifters, and those of the genus Fromia tend to be your best choices for survivability

Linckias tend to die rather quickly and Protoreasters (mostly the knobby guys) tend to be unsafe in reef tanks

as kahluazzz alluded to, they all need a stable system...there are a lot of benifits to having starfish though (depending on which ones you get)

as far as the LR, he got you pretty squared away there too...the ebst plan is to get all your LR at the begining and then do some tests for a while to make sure you arent having major die off...then add your critters (fish/inverts)

 

[Liberty_Girl]

Lets say I get a few pounds of LR then I add fish and everything. Is it possible to add more live rock to the same tank. Or do I need to add all the LR I'm going to need at the beginning?

- the internet elf

 

[KahluaZzZ]

better do it once. You don't want to have ammonia everytime. I wanted to do the same thing not so long ago.

 

[aresgod]

if you are sure it is fully cured then it isnt a problem to add a little bit at a time, establish a trusting relationship with your LFS, i pick mine out of the "cured" tank at my LFS and have them put it in a hold tank for me for another 2 weeks just to be sure, the other option is to have a small 15 gallon going where you double check to make sure the rock is cured

 

[RYANRODRIGUEZ]

get a chololate chip starfish they are super ease and requre no manule feeding and if a fish dies they will eat it. i got mine a year ago when i first started and its still alive and has stayed the same size and for $6 US dollars thats not bad for 1 year +.

 

[S.Reef]

The problem with Chocolate Chips is that they eat corals...keep in mind if you want to go reef.

 

[RYANRODRIGUEZ]

i have never heard that before. its never ate my corals.

 

[1979camaro]

they are notoriously unspecified feeders...little crabs, corals, other stars, whatever they can catch...not a good reef choice

 

[dbacksrat]

some brittlestars can get big--up to 1'--so do the sand sifting ones...without a huge, mature, deep sand bed, it will die