Starfish - Yea or Nay?

[Tastee]

I’m interested to hear members thoughts on starfish - helpful or harmful?

I have an RSR250 and one of my inverts is a Sand Sifter Starfish. I’ve only been in the hobby a bit over a year so are definitely a newbie. Originally I added this to help maintain my sand bed, eat detritus etc. I understand now however that it eats microfauna in the sand bed, but not so much detritus. Here is my critter. Been in the tank nearly 6 months now and doing well. We like it, quite active, very interesting, does no (overt) damage apart from moving my Hammer around a little.



What are your thoughts?

In a small environment is their effect of stripping microfauna from the sand bed a detriment?
Would my tank be better off without this little guy?

Or is he adding to the ecosystem and (as long as I can keep him healthy) a valuable member of the tank?

Love to hear everyone’s thoughts, and thanks in advance!

 

[James M]

I think there good guys but everyone has different opinions.

 

[Tastee]

BTW the video is a few months old and the GHA issue you can see has now been pretty much sorted.

 

[Alfrareef]

Yea. IMO the sand stirring its more important than the creatures she might eat.

 

[DSC reef]

We kept one alive for about a year in a 125 that was 3 years old. It stripped the sand bed clean and eventually died under the sand bed. Personally I would use a mix of conchs and nassarius snails to turn the sand bed. Just keep an eye on him.

 

[reef lover]

+1 i use conchs as well to turn my substrate without losing all the important little creatures that the star fish will eat...and eventually run out of and slowly starve to death...:(

 

[Coralreefer1]

I prefer to use Serpent or Brittle Sea Stars, since they do an awesome job janitorial wise. Combine this with the fact that they are pretty easy to care for makes them a fine candidate for a reef biotope.
MOST Stars that have a knobby appearance should not be incorporated in a reef tank due to their ability to eat many things we don’t want them to eat.
Linkia and Fromia Stars are awesome but I find them to be a lot more demanding husbandry wise and because they are delicate with a life expectancy short lived by most accounts.
Sand Sifting Sea Stars are debatable. Ok, yes they do a good job cleaning and aerating your sand bed...unfortunately, they are too good at it as in a short period of time your sand bed will become barren as detritus is gone but so are your beneficial polychaete worms and other flora and fauna that helps with the biodiversity in and around the benthic regions of a tank. Eventually they succumb to starvation and parish.
Asterina Stars, depending on which kind, do a fine job helping to maintain a clean tank. These are not purchased but are introduced into an aquarium as a hitchhiker on live rock or coral. Like I mentioned earlier, some of these have a fondness for eating your coral so be on the lookout for these and eradicate them so future episodes don’t pursue.