Urchins, Starfish etc

[Belladog0]

I have a 20 gallon tank and I am wondering if I should put in any invertebrates like urchins and starfish. I have heard that starfish are not worth it and they are hard to take care of? What do you have to do extra for starfish. Also I am wondering about urchins and hermit crabs and other invertebrates. Which should I get? Also I want to know more about hermit crabs, urchins, starfish, and shrimp.
Thanks!!

 

[CleverBs]

I have urchins, star fish, crabs, snails in my 25 gallon it's all about the right combo. I have a fancy serpent star fish that's probably 6-7 inches in diameter I feed him 4th of a jumbo shrimp once a week. The urchin is a banded long spine and I love him he's very happy in my tank and probably one of my favorite things in the tank other then my scooter Blenny (they are just the best). The urchin I spot feed every day when I feed my fish he eats a bit of shrimp and also eats algae all day and night. The thing I like about my urchin is it doesn't hide during the day he out and about moving around all the time. I think the star fish that are harder to keep are the algae eating ones serpents eat mainly meaty items.

Shrimp I have had trouble with but I have only had peppermint and I think I got them to early on before there was enough food in my tank and they began to munch on my corals so they got removed. I may get a fire shrimp down the road.

Hermits are great but a lot of people have trouble keeping them alive. I have lost 1 out of 6 in the past 3 months my tank has been running.

My clean up crew in my 25 gallon reef is:
12 nassarias snails
6 nerite snails
5 dwarf hermits
1 banded long spine urchin
1 Francy serpent star fish
2 emerald crabs

Mine is probably over kill for such a small tank but everything seems to be doing fine as of now. I would say the reason why inverts are typically hard to keep alive is lack of food in the system so don't get them to early wait to get some good growth in your tank first.

 

[Soccerdude]

Urchins are great unless you have acrylic according to my local fish store.. My LFS told me to avoid sea urchins completely because they will scratch the crap out of my acrylic.

 

[dwint]

my pencil urchin ate my chocalate chip starfish