Sand sifting star

[Ronald Marcelo]

Hi, my tank is up and running for about 5 months now, cycle took a month. I currently have a fire goby, tank bred clown fish, yellow coris wrasse(canary wrasse), 4 hermit crabs, cleaner shrimp, 2 turbo snails, margarita snail & now a sand sifting star. I have read many many pros and cons regarding a sifting star. It was recommended by a fellow hobbyist at work and my LFS. I have a 4" DSB (i know murder). I read and was told by experienced people that it would solve my detritus problem. I am concerned that it will eat all the good cyanobacteria. I keep up with 20% water changes bi weekly. I test for ammonia/Ph/nitrate/nitrite weekly and all levels are stable. Ammonia always at zero and salinity is always 1.025. I use a specrta maxcap 90 RODI system. I am writing this on the fly so please excuse me if I didn't cover anything... Should i keep the star? I also have live sand... 40 lbs of live rock... A 55 gallon main and a 20 gallon sump... With a small refugium. I have sand in my refuge and no live rock atm. Thanks for making sense out of nonsense

 

[bill302]

Sandsifting stars are microfauna predators. They eat pods,worms and all the other beneficial life in your sand bed and with a tank 5 months there is not a lot beneficial life in your sand bed . After they quickly decimate the sandbed of life, they slowly begin dying. It might take months or more than a year but the average aquarium sandbed cannot support one long term. I see you have a refugium you could grow pods there for food. which may support the star.

 

[Ronald Marcelo]

Sandsifting stars are microfauna predators. They eat pods,worms and all the other beneficial life in your sand bed and with a tank 5 months there is not a lot beneficial life in your sand bed . After they quickly decimate the sandbed of life, they slowly begin dying. It might take months or more than a year but the average aquarium sandbed cannot support one long term. I see you have a refugium you could grow pods there for food. which may support the star.

Thanks Bill! What would be your recommendation to grow pods in my refugium? Unfortunately i listened to advice without doing my own research... I hope i can at least give it back to the LFS or exchange it. I don't want the bugger to die. Do you know of any good inverts and or fish that are friendly and enjoy detritus? What iv'e been doing so far is removing it from my main by hand when i do my water changes. However i'm stressing the fish and moving the sand bed around a bit to much. I have read a lot and adjusted my feeding 10 fold. I also adjusted my led light. Im using two strips of 12 white LED's @ 8400k lumens (each strip has 6 lights and is 4200k). I made my light fixture and almost had twice that prior to the outbreak. It's under control now but seems to be resurfacing. Thanks in advance.

 

[bill302]

post a pic of your refugium....there is a lot of info on this on the internet. but you can add cheatomorpha algae and live rock on top of sand in your refugium if you have room and add some pods, you can buy pods online, but the area needs to be large enough with a low flow. I control detritus in my tank with power heads which flow water over sand bed and keep the detrius in the water column where its filtered out...

 

[Ronald Marcelo]

Thanks! I'll post a picture sometime tomorrow. It has nothing but sand and is about 6 inch wide maybe 5 1/2 inches. I was thinking of getting a refuge starter kit from liveaquaria.

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=2190+3177&pcatid=3177

I know it's more than enough but it appears to be extremely useful. But what are the cons?

 

[Ronald Marcelo]

I know my refugium area is super small and if i could have a 30gallon refugium i would lol. Every little bit helps. Thanks in advance.