Doomed Starfish?

[spooge88]

here's a question, an hour ago i just bought a brittle starfish for my refugium and checked the salinity of the stores water and it turned out to be 1.019. my salinity is 1.025
am i screwed?
what is the best way to approach this now, the store is closed and i can't leave the star in a little container

 

[matts125]

Welcome to reef fronteirs!!!

there is no problem here bud, just slowly drip acclimate the star fish take your time and drip slowly.

are you familar with the drip acclimation procedure?

Matt

 

[jsmkmavity]

set up a drip system to VERY slowly acclimate the star. an even better solution would be to set up a small tank if you have a spare or a bowl or container of some kind and put the star with store water in it and in a seperate container take some of your tank water and add fresh water to reduce salinity to match what the star is in then add to the temporary container and then slowly drip in more main tank water with a jug and a large pinhole or something.

 

[spooge88]

i am familiar with the drip method, i started it about an hour and a half ago, i was just worried that such a change over a short period would kill the star.

 

[spooge88]

thank you for the quick replies matts125 and jsmkmavity.

 

[returnofsid]

I think with a good 3 hour drip acclimation, you'll be fine. Pet stores have a habit of keeping their salinity low to decrease diseases....or atleast decrease the visible signs of diseases...lol.

 

[spooge88]

i'm sure its to keep salt costs down as well, but i've never seen it that low before from a store, i guess thats what you get from a superpet store

 

[Krish]

Welcome to RF!!! Hope you enjoy it here As already suggested, the drip method should work wonders for you. I've seen brittle stars amongst all sorts of other critters/fish here in the wild left behind in tidepools and they are exposed to extreme changes in salinity and even temp everyday and do just fine so if you drip slowly, the brittle star should be good to go

Also, on the salt being so low at the LFS, I've also heard that they keep it lower for disease purposes, and also, that it is less stressful on the fish. Not sure how true it is, but that's what I've been told