They are! We waited till after the holidays when we could afford to get 2 gen 2s. I don’t have a basis of comparison being new to everything but I read they have a much sturdier design than the gen ones and man they are solid. But I’m learning the mantra of this hobby is “just need one more thing”, so gotta get the remote to control them now lol.Are those the Nicrew Gen 2 lights? How do you like them?
Nothing wrong with your IM 40 or your time frame, in my opinion.
YES!!!! THAT is what I was trying to think of. The brittlestar. And CC stars can also get huge. Twelve inches across. I had one of these for a few years WITH corals in a 90g. Yep.....Didn't research it well at all. It went down with the rest of the tank before it got even close to full size. It was only years later that I realized I'd done an irresponsible thing on putting that in there.Great point friend, I meant to touch on this!
If a sea star is what you and your family really want, I'd encourage you to do some real research, so as not to disappoint your kids. Arguably, the easiest, least expensive and maybe hardiest real sea star is the Chocolate Chip Star (Protoreaster nodosus), but these animals are not safe around corals if you aspire to also have corals.
Furthermore, many of the sand-sifting sea stars really require a very deep and mature sand bed, or they simply deplete their food source, and slowly starve to death in many home aquaria.
Not true sea stars according to the taxonomists who do this work, but I think bristle stars (a common name with multiple Genera) and the like will make your daughter very happy, and be a much better "resident" in your tank:
Hash tag, not my picture :)
As always, good luck!
Chocolate chips stars are a dime a dozen, and have been for decades now. Now we know about these animals and other stars :)
Ah fellow Pennsylvanian, nice!
if you're local to the east coast of PA, take a look at the link in my signature to find out how to join our forum group :).
