Chocolate Chip Star Fish

[liaw]

Welcome to Reef2Reef! You'll love it here!

I'll start by asking how old your tank is. Majority of sea stars sift through the sandbed and eat microorganisms such as copepods, which new tanks have a very little amount of. Mature tanks are often better for starfish simply because any food populations take time to establish. Chocolate chip stars, like any star, will always benefit from being fed meaty foods. Without proper food, stars slowly deteriorate and perish.

Starfish are also extremely sensitive creatures. They need perfect and stable parameters. In a new tank, this is hard to achieve. Could you post your ammonia, nitrates, etc.?

How did you acclimate the star? Many reefers lose their starfish due to poor acclimation.

In short, starfish unfortunately don't survive long in new reefs, and require a certain amount of care and expertise to thrive. I believe any one of the above reasons could be why your starfish is doing poorly, but hopefully things turn around for it.

The tank is about 6 months old
And I will recheck everything tonight and let you know the levels
And I explained all of this to the pet store prior to purchasing and they said he would be just fine

 

[liaw]

Your chocolate chip starfish seems fine to me. It seems like the orange material is just excrement. When you have to worry is when the body turns white and starts to decompose, by that time unfortunately it is too late. I love starfish, I keep a variety of brittle stars, orange and purple linkias, and have tried every species out there. Obviously acclimation is the most delicate part of introducing a starfish into your tank, a slow drip over several hours is best. Once thing I would like to share with you is Protoreaster species are voracious eaters. They do scavenge the tank but that is not enough. I place clams on the half shell on the sand and place the starfish on top to eat. You will be amazed how much some starfish need to eat, especially Protoreaster and Brittle star/ Serpent star species.

I put him on the clams and he just went away

 

[liaw]

To my knowledge, stars don't have an excretory system, but the waste actually diffuses out of pores on their feet.

I’ve read somewhere they are getting rid of the Damaged suckers and they do this when they don’t get enough nutrients and then it said it probably won’t survive....

 

[G Santana]

Welcome and good luck with your starfish

 

[fishguy242]

hi welcome to the reef going to love it here!!
lots of fun/info/fun/help/fun....

 

[Jeffcb]

Welcome to Reef2Reef!

 

[Jimbhoy13]

Welcome to R2R and the salty world. It seems like your Lfs made a sale without good advice. I would be wary of buying from them. Lots of knowledgeable and helpful people here who will support and advise you when needed.

 

[NashobaTek]

 

[BeltedCoyote]

Welcome to R2R!!!

 

[Fish Think Pink]

Hello, I have had my chocolate chip star fish for about a week and he has been super active up until the past 2 days and I noticed he has this orange stuff hanging out of him
Now the lady at the pet store I got him from said I don’t have to feed him anything special he will just sift through the sand and eat algae off the glass then I researched he is a meat eater so I went and got him clams
Does he have a chance at surviving ?
water parameters are great and the temp is great and salinity is perfect

Welcome!

Good luck with your starfish. Deferring to others as it has been 20+ years since I had chocolate chip starfish and mine was intended as live shrimp food back then. He is lucky to have you caring for him. Sometimes people at LFSs say the craziest things. He might need you to give him clam bits depending how starved they let him be before you got him. Sending positive wishes for full recovery.

 

[Fish Think Pink]

I put him on the clams and he just went away

Keep trying. He might prefer lights dimmed or night eating. If that clam sits dead in tank too long, take it out and try another fresh clam as you don't want to leave decaying 'food' in tank. Also try other fish foods you might have on hand. Since obviously LFS was letting it starve, you can't ask them what they were feeding it... I would not do flake food now, but 20+ years ago flake and pellets was about all there was, so I'm sure one of those had to be what I used to feed my chocolate chip starfish. Today I'd thaw Reef Frenzy and offer - its a mix of multiple seafoods

 

[liaw]

Keep trying. He might prefer lights dimmed or night eating. If that clam sits dead in tank too long, take it out and try another fresh clam as you don't want to leave decaying 'food' in tank. Also try other fish foods you might have on hand. Since obviously LFS was letting it starve, you can't ask them what they were feeding it... I would not do flake food now, but 20+ years ago flake and pellets was about all there was, so I'm sure one of those had to be what I used to feed my chocolate chip starfish. Today I'd thaw Reef Frenzy and offer - its a mix of multiple seafoods

After about an hour the clam was in there my goby ate it

 

[liaw]

After about an hour the clam was in there my goby ate it

I just put him in the little box I got like the ones at the pet store that they put the fish in when you purchase the fish (I hope that made sense) and you one of the clams that was left in there and thawed out some brine and shrimp food I have and he put himself over the clam so hopefully he is eating and not just passing over it

 

[vetteguy53081]

 

[Salty Rambler]

Welcome to R2R and good luck with your starfish!

 

[Adolfo]

Welcome to R2R !!!
No info about the starfish sorry

 

[MERKEY]

Hello and welcome to R2R!

 

[SPR1968]

Hi and welcome to Reef2Reef!

 

[Kiwi reefer]

Welcome! looking forward to seeing your reef!

 

[gonzo620]

Hello I’ve had a chocolate chip a while back and the orange stuff appear to be the stomach. You do know starfish expel their stomachs to eat. They dissolve their food outside their bodies and then sorta mop up the food into them. When I had mine it was to harvest limbs for a harlequin shrimp.
Only big difference from your pic was the stomachs usually stick to the surface it’s on.Not just hang out. When you moved him it should retracted his stomach.
They should be feed meaty foods for sure. And if you don’t plan on having corals totally safe to keep these guys are easy to keep.