Sand-sifting star a bad decision?!

[fishcrazee]

Sigh...... I bought a small 3" sand-sifting starfish today and now I'm hearing it was a bad choice. Why do they even sell them if they're not good for anything except depleting your sand bed of everything good? Some people tell me they're great, others say they will quickly eat all my microfauna and then proceed to die; who's right? I have 40# LR, 30# LS and a 2g fuge for my 38g salt tank. Is this way too small for one small starfish? Does anyone have any actual experience with these starfish?
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[payge]

We were told by our fish store they need 50g per star..I dont see ours doin much..they just stir up the sand...we have all kinds of brown die-off algea stuff it doesnt touch..ours is also bigger than 3in..more like 5-6in they get big HE's not bad so far..seems to eat all kinds of stuff..we keep seeing lil tiny sandbed clam shells that are shucked and our snails are now gone too...dont know if that was the star or the puffer tho lol..

I haven't heard anything bad and we were reccommened to get one by The Shark Reef..they specialize in SW fishes--its all they sell...and they set up our tank so I hope they know what they're doin lol

 

[mmkeeper]

You can feed your star too. You can feed it alittlw frozen brine or other things.

 

[NaH2O]

My personal view is not to have them in a tank. They will eat the microfauna in the substrate, and once that food source is gone, they will starve. How long this takes would be dependent on the food source available to them, and how quickly they eat it. I haven't read about anyone target feeding their star, so not sure how easily that is accomplished. Something like a sand sifting sea cucumber (if you have fine sand) would be a better choice, and/or nassarius snails.