AydenLincoln
Pufferfish lover!
Please read before getting a starfish and/or read if you like my West African Biscuit/Goniaster tessellatus, which is rare in the aquarium industry. This same info applies to virtually all starfish and many brittle/serpent stars (which aren’t starfish but their own genus included in echinoderms), and I caution against getting a linckia/fromia for everyone, not just beginners, as starfish, especially these two types which need stability, low nutrients, and a constant food source to sustain them long-term think a year plus which is rare in the aquarium industry, especially with fromia and linckia. It’s also worth noting starfish live much shorter lives in captivity regardless…think decades in the wild, not just years. Today I had a call with a marine biologist/starfish expert hoping to learn more and get the article I’m writing fact checked, and I’m so mad the audio didn’t record. But I learned a lot and the following is just some of that/based on my own scientific research, and he’s widely known in the scientific community as one of the only people who study starfish/echinoderms and gets the privilege of discovering and naming new species. He basically said…he didn’t know a lot about my starfish in particular but that it’s actually found in many different parts of the world and is the same family as the chocolate chip starfish, who is actually a herbivore, and that all they eat in the wild is algae. And that starfish do, in fact, have particular diets in the wild that may or may not be able to be replicated exactly in aquariums but are needed to thrive and be happy long-term. Starfish aren’t simply opportunistic feeders in the wild they have particular diets and live for decades, not so much in aquariums; sadly, you’re lucky to get past a year for a lot of species, especially common ones like fromia/linckia. So when starfish, for example, chocolate chip starfish, are fed meaty things or go after corals in aquariums (even large public ones), they take it because they are that desperate and hungry, but that’s not their natural diet. Still, it’s easier to feed that than the algae or micrograms many stars actually need to survive long-term, and thus they are deemed not reef safe. He said, “You can survive off prison food, but you aren’t going to be very happy…the same thing applies to starfish”. And now I feel really bad for all the starfish that died in aquariums, and I’m doing my very best to keep mine happy, which includes trying to get my nutrients down. It’s also worth noting all starfish in the aquarium industry are wild-caught, and simply bringing them up to the surface may change their shape/spikes if they have any. Oh, and asterina starfish (common name not scientific/misunderstood name which are considered a pest) is indeed the only starfish that can truly thrive in aquariums, and no starfish are truly 100% reef-safe as suspected. And brittle/serpent, who many say thrive in aquariums, aren’t starfish they are echinoderms, though, and even they do better in the wild long-term. He’s also going to fact check my article, which is now focused more on educating the general public and debunking common myths to be posted on an online forum and shared. I hope this helps anyone considering getting a starfish and wait at the very minimum a few months to a year from setting up a brand new the tank up and don’t just plop them in even if you use live ocean rock you still need to wait. They need to be drip acclimated for around an hour plus for the best chance and will behave differently in aquariums compared to the wild. Signs to look for of a starfish are dying or starving include: Smoke coming from them, limbs falling off/disintegrating, a very skinny look, spikes falling off, intestines protruding, and puffy/shriveled appearances. At which point 99% don’t survive, and you have to decide if they need to be removed from the tank or humanely euthanized in various ways. What I want you to take away is that the game of telephone is played in the aquarium industry, and that’s how a lot of scientific names are mixed up and how it’s based on anecdotal evidence, not scientific fact. So truly, find out what your particular starfish eats from a marine biologist/scientific standpoint, not just based on what aquarium websites tell you or what the fish store says. There’s also great databases like echinobase.org and marinespecies.org and if you can’t find info on that starfish or doesn’t look like the photo then that’s the wrong scientific name and public aquariums as I learned are one of the worst places to get information and will tell you that your request/questions can’t be accommodated. I hope this helps someone considering a starfish or someone who added a starfish into a recently cycled tank.
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