Fish nipping at starfish

Zach443 · Nov 17, 2013

Ok so today for the very first time I saw my sand sifting starfish on the glass for the very first time. I thought it was kinda neat, so I walked over to the tank and I saw that one of his arm/leg things was really beat up and torn away. I wast really sure what had happened until one of my Green Chromis came over and took a bite out of that one leg. I immediately got food and fed all the fish. Everything seemed fine until a couple hours later I noticed that more of his leg was gone, I am not sure wether parts just fell off or if the fish are more of it. Any idea why the fish would do that, or if the starfish will be ok?

Ps. We have had the starfish without problems for over 3 months now, only other inhabitants in the tank are snails and 4 Green Chromis. Tank is 36 gallons.

doylef4i · Nov 17, 2013

A 36 gal is really way to small for a sand sifting star. It has probably exhausted it's food source( sand dwelling micro fauna) which is why it is cruising around on the glass. Sounds like it is wasting away.

Zach443 · Nov 18, 2013

doylef4i said:
A 36 gal is really way to small for a sand sifting star. It has probably exhausted it's food source( sand dwelling micro fauna) which is why it is cruising around on the glass. Sounds like it is wasting away.

Yes, it has done a great job of getting rid of the algae in the tank. I was prepared for this however. I bought algae wafers for him.