"I guess we're hobbyists"

[OldGoat]

Hi there! I'm Bill (the big tank guy) and my wife is Andrea (the little tank Lady)
Title was a recent quote from my wife after setting up our second saltwater tank since Mothers Day. Our first tank was a Mothers Day gift for her, a 28G Nano Cube (with the super lights). She is much more interested in Coral than Fish. That tank currently hosts a plethora of snails, crabs, and starfish. She has a lawn mower blenny, a pajama cardinal and a recently added pair of clown fish. All are doing well. We have gone through brown and green and orange, cloudy water and clear.....I think we have it under control now! (wishful thinking I'm sure)
The tank in my avatar is our second, a gift from a coworker. It's a 55G, we bought black sand and 65 pounds of live rock and water from the LFS and started it up about 10 days ago. This tank will be my "Zoa Garden Predator Tank" I intend to get a Dwarf Lion Fish and some sort of Eel (Maybe a Blue Ribbon eel) and grow only Zoanthide's. I currently have no lights on this tank...lighting questions in another post lol.

 

[143MPCo]

Welcome to r2r!!!

 

[Kaskade]

Welcome!

 

[Chrisfish]

Welcome, you've come to the right place. Btw we'd love to see pictures of your wife's tank too

 

[glb]

 

[OldGoat]

Welcome, you've come to the right place. Btw we'd love to see pictures of your wife's tank too

There is Andrea's tank as of about 5 minutes ago!

 

[Maritimer]

Welcome aboard, Bill & Andrea!

A rainbow of zoanthids entwined with an ominous eel? That sounds pretty darned incredible!

Andrea's tank looks to be coming along nicely - kind of a lot of sandsifting stars, though . . .

~Bruce

 

[OldGoat]

Welcome aboard, Bill & Andrea!

A rainbow of zoanthids entwined with an ominous eel? That sounds pretty darned incredible!

Andrea's tank looks to be coming along nicely - kind of a lot of sandsifting stars, though . . .

~Bruce

Bruce, everything in the darn tank (excluding fish) was bought to fix one color change or another. The sand sifter fixed the orange sand problem, the turbo snails to fix the green glass problem (they're slackers) the bumblebee snails and hermit crabs were to fix the brown and green algae on the rocks, the zombie snails and the conch etc etc etc LOL

 

[melypr1985]

Welcome to R2R! We are so glad to have you here!

 

[dbl]

Welcome to R2R and to your new hobby, now that it's confirmed!!!

 

[Untamedrose]

Spread the stars out...three in a little new tank is way over done. It wont provide enough food for them.
here info http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/sand-sifting-starfish-job-too-well-done-astropecten-4399/

Hobbiest means research especially in this hobby.

and welcome!

 

[4FordFamily]

Welcome home, both of you, to reef2reef! You'll love it here!

 

[OldGoat]

Spread the stars out...three in a little new tank is way over done. It wont provide enough food for them.
here info http://www.saltwatersmarts.com/sand-sifting-starfish-job-too-well-done-astropecten-4399/

Hobbiest means research especially in this hobby.

and welcome!

I read every day! LOL Let me tell ya...as I'm sure you know...there is more contradictory information out there than there are species of livestock. I raised pigs and goats for a few years and it was the same situation, a wise old fella told me to pick ONE "expert" and follow their advice without fail and their advice ONLY until I was smart enough to make my own decisions.........sage advice if you ask me. I read the article in it's entirety so now I have three options.
1) Ignore you and hope for the best (LOL)
2) Ask the LFS if they want a couple of them back (they sold us all 3 of them and at this point are our "one expert") or
3)move 2 of them into the big tank......which has nothing in it at all but live rock........Thoughts?

 

[Untamedrose]

Ya dont think this is going to go well..Good luck!

 

[OldGoat]

I guess I should have started that reply with "Thanks for the input, I appreciate it." I wasn't trying to be a jerk Untamedrose. At the end there was "....thoughts?" That was a legit question I think, as they are in the tank now so if I opt to move a couple of them...what should be done with them? I will admit that in this point in my hobbyist endeavor I am practically clueless.

 

[eliramos]

I read every day! LOL Let me tell ya...as I'm sure you know...there is more contradictory information out there than there are species of livestock. I raised pigs and goats for a few years and it was the same situation, a wise old fella told me to pick ONE "expert" and follow their advice without fail and their advice ONLY until I was smart enough to make my own decisions.........sage advice if you ask me. I read the article in it's entirety so now I have three options.
1) Ignore you and hope for the best (LOL)
2) Ask the LFS if they want a couple of them back (they sold us all 3 of them and at this point are our "one expert") or
3)move 2 of them into the big tank......which has nothing in it at all but live rock........Thoughts?

Welcome aboard!!!

As far as the starfish go I would return all three!
They need huge tanks with tons of sand to dig through for food( pods detritus etc) or they will starve!

You could look into diamond gobies, yellow head gobies or even a bullet goby!
They will do a great job at keeping your sand over turned and white as snow...they will wipe them out of any small pods and inverts but as long as they are eating what your feeding they will stay fat and happy!
Best of luck!

 

[Salty1962]

Welcome to R2R Bill!

 

[domination2580]

Welcome! Great to have you here! I like the zoa tank idea with predators.

 

[code4]

Welcome on board! I have a sand sifting starfish in my 65. Fat little thing. I over feed my tank. So I carbon dose. And the circle of life continues. Have had it for a couple of years. I do keep an eye on it. But it seems to be doing great. I even watched it fall upside down and then right itself! Amazing. Once my scarlet hermit crab was nibbling on its leg. I tossed it into the sump under my 140 gallon. No idea how the evil thing is doing. But Twinkle is doing better now again. I spend more time learning about this "hobby" than I ever have anything else. And I Know Nothing!

Nice to meet you.

Shelley

 

[Untamedrose]

I guess I should have started that reply with "Thanks for the input, I appreciate it." I wasn't trying to be a jerk Untamedrose. At the end there was "....thoughts?" That was a legit question I think, as they are in the tank now so if I opt to move a couple of them...what should be done with them? I will admit that in this point in my hobbyist endeavor I am practically clueless.

I think that you shouldnt think of reefing as keeping a domesticated animal. A fish in a tank is Not a goat in a pen, its not a dog or a cat.
Reef keeping is building and stabling a whole eco system. It all builds off each other. Cant just plug in one piece of the system and ta da it will work. And here we have way over done one tiny section of the eco system.

I think you shouldnt trust your local LFS... that very few are trust worthy to start with most are there to make money...most of the time your talking to minimum wage teen to 20 somethings who dont know jack.(I know I was one a decade or so ago, and I wouldnt have told someone to do that!)

I think that 3 sand sifting starfish in what? 1 inch of sand in a 29 gal tank...no if ands of buts....will died.(and not in the well everything dies like...they will not have enough food Q for one to a few months) Your eco system cant support them and direct feeding doesnt really work for these, so winging it isnt going to help. And it's not pretty they dont just died...they peel off their skin, loosing limbs and start melting...potentially messing the rest of the tank up.

Can they be kept? Kept healthy? Sure! Code/shelly... just described a decent set up for ONE.

Id suggest returning them. I'd suggest laying into the owner of the store about how you were mislead, lied to, way over sold amd they should know better.... but thats just my take and not leaving without at least full price refund/store credit(which I sure would not spend at that time)

I dont care if you consider me an "expert" or not(and I'm really not trying to be a PITA just hit a few of my petpeeves here)..... Google it.... sand sifting starfish care/needs/ good or bad reef tank/ dying/melting