Are Sand Sifting Stars good or bad for live sand??
I tt Becky at Dr Macs and she sd SSS are bad for live sand because they eat all the stuff in the sand then they die from starvation. I have had 3 stars in my tank for over 6 months.
Are they good or bad??
??? ??? ???
slap-stick
IMO they are not good for a live sand bed. For the very reasons Becky mentions.
I heard they make a great food source for sexy shrimp though.
i’ve read and spoken to those with experience of these and they will starve to death even in a 300gallon tank, they eat like a bulldozer which at the same time deprives your sand bed of its microfauna which defeats the purpose of the sand bed.
FWIW, i still have my original SSS that i bought almost 5 years ago. It has been in my 75g the entire time.
Keeping them is a trade off. Personally, i think getting nassarius snails are a better bet. They will keep your SB turned over and greedily eat prepared food which might help mitigate the amount of microfauna they consume.
I've had mine for little while and it keeps the sand bed clean but mine is not very deep and only there as light substraight. I have a RDSB with nothing in it for denitrification.sandbeds (and why not to kill the fauna in them)
How Sandbeds REALLY Work by Ronald L. Shimek, Ph.D. - Reefkeeping.com
Ron Shimek’s Website…Deep Sand Beds
Ron is a student of the fauna in sand beds. he studies the biology of the bacteria and bugs that live in the sand and mud. For him the mud environment is everything. so you have to read his studies from that point of view. He nutures his sand bed and has a benign reef tank above it. Most of us are not capable of or willing to develop the bio diversity in our sand beds that he has kept in his tank these many years. I think he has a 6-12 inch deep fine sand bed in his 65? He has stocked it with the most diverse selection of bacteria, bugs worms and critters. a deep sandbed relies on a very dense population of burrowing worms. Most of our tanks are devoid of those worms in any great number. their burrows allow tank water to slowly penetrate deep into the bed and the worms excrete nutrients into the deep sand. they stir the sand and turn it over rapidy slightly oxygenating it in the process . But most of our deep sandbeds just sit there, unstired and fester. Which makes for an unequal comparison.
Yes, those are good articles by him. I had the book long ago, and have read the others. I met Ron in one of his seminars at the MACNA conference in Baltimore 7-8 years ago? But like he says, a sand bed is less about the sand and mostly about a dense population of various bugs, worms and snails and bacteria and nematodes and stuff turning it over. much more than i have seen an any tank around here.
:BUMP)
KEN- I didnt get a vote from you about SSS. Good or Bad?
i guess i’d say the thing you should really ask is the sand sifting star, does it want to be confined in an inadequate living condition, my or anyone else’s opinons be damned.
could u sould a little less condescending oooops
[quote=“TimH07, post:11, topic:2232”]
i guess i’d say the thing you should really ask is the sand sifting star, does it want to be confined in an inadequate living condition, my or anyone else’s opinons be damned.[/quote]
So guess you have a water filled box with rocks and sand and nothing else right ???
this is getting out of hand. this behavior is hostile and unacceptable(<-pot calling kettly black >LOL<)
On a serious note, Tim thats a very broad statement you made, and IMO can be applied equally to about 99% of the livestock we keep as hobbyist. IMO, every animal we keep we do so knowing that we are keeping it in a “less than ideal” environment. I mean come on, can we as a hobby be any less ridiculous than we are with our silly rules we establish to ease our conscious? “its not ok to keep a tang in a 4’ tank, but a 6’ tank is perfect” ;D not to mention the dozens of others. IMO, its much worse to keep an intelligent fish in less than ideal condition that an organism that can clone itself. Im not assigning more value to the lives of fish than starfish, but i just think your reaction is strange. I hadnt realized that the SSS starfish was so extensively studied by qualified individuals, and if it has been, please give me some links because i just cant find any. I agree with you that SSS are not “ideal” for a CUC if you want a thrving microfauna population in your sandbed, but to the comments your making about their overall suitabilyt seems to me to be very unfounded. Like i mentioned, i have kept my SSS for over 5 years in my 75g with a moderate sandbed. Im certainly not qualified to determine the health of my SSS, and i certainly wouldnt know where to begin giving it a physcial, but i seriously doubt that any animal could slowly starve for 5 years. we can tell ourselves what we want, but the reality is this hobby has very few positive attributes and even those are probably best left to the science community and larger instuitions. IMO, there are genrally two types of hobbyiest. the transient hobbyiest that is here for nothing other than eyecandy and couldnt care less about the animals, the environment, or the hobbys effect on both. Unfortunately, this group accounts for the bulk of the hobby and are very easy to spot becuase the hobby is nothing more than an excercise in capitalism where everything is seen as a dollar sign and the only time these hobbyist venture forth from the natural habitiat is to creat a buy, sell, trade thread. Luckily, the rest of the group consists of a lot of very intelligent and compassionat people that make an attempt to give back to the hobby and the planet.
btw, the whole “biologist” thing is a little pet peeve of mine. your certainly not the first person to make a comment like this, but i would just like to point out that there is a BIG difference between being intelligent and being educated and the two are not inclusive. Unfortunately, in this country, getting a degree has less to do with a persons intellgience and drive and more to do with their parents financial statements. Having any degree in biology does not in any way qualify someone as an expert in the hobby of marine aquaria more than someone without a biology degree or without any degree for that matter. Furthermore, even extensively educated individuals in the field of biology(i.e, MS, Phd) are not by any means automatic experts in marine aquaria. For the most part unless somone works in a field that is directly involved with zoos or aquariums they are more than likely to be so specialized that they would have very little to offer in the way of marine aquaria that did not coincide with their field of specialty. Ive said it before, and i will say it again, the ocean and our tanks are two different entities as are marine biologist and hobbyist. Obviously one is the foundation for the other but there are a LOT of differences between the two. When i want to discect one of my animals or know its scientific name maybe ill ask a marine biologist. When i have a question regarding husbandry practices specific to the hobby im going to ask an advanced hobbyiest or maybe someone that is involved with large-scale zoology/aquairums.
Its ok to give your opinion, right or wrong, thats what forums are for. There is no need to qualify your post with a link or a “marine biologist said so”. It doesnt make you right, it makes you not have an opinion of your own. Im not being antagonistic, im only making an observation based on some of the replys you have gotten to several of your posts that are similar to the two above.
Shawn (Mr Politically correct) :P
Man you must be in a typing mood today ;D
But when it comes right down to it like you said If your pulling ANYTHING out of the wild and put into captivity there not happy. Captive bred animals might be the only exception to that rule just for the reason that they never experienced it.I know! Well at least now you know what you get when you mix a fast typer and ADD >LOL<
forums lack tone of voice, i was just crackin a joke with a smirk not trashing anybody (and had a few drinks, sorry) BoNg :BEER
[quote=“TimH07, post:17, topic:2232”]
forums lack tone of voice, i was just crackin a joke with a smirk not trashing anybody (and had a few drinks, sorry) BoNg :BEER[/quote]
No harm no foul big guy it's all good :BEER[quote=“billrob71, post:15, topic:2232”]
Captive bred animals might be the only exception to that rule just for the reason that they never experienced it.[/quote]
Don’t forget that even captive raised animals probably still have dismal survival rates considering the poor conditions in most whole salers and retailers… If they make it into a tank 99% of the people keeping them are new to the hobby and won’t keep them alive too long or ever raise them to the point where they can bread. It’s a crap shoot for 99% of all of it. (Not to paint a negative picture of the hobby and the percentages posted are guess work)
If this bothers you at all perhaps at a meeting we could discuss ways in which we can change things or make the lives of our captive critters mean something.
would like to do something with the club where we feel like we give back to the reef not sure how thow. i know there may come a day when some corals only are gone save for are tanks so we should try to do the best with them we can