Some type of Atlantic Starfish??

[cracker]

Evening Folks and Happy Mother's Day to all You Mom's out there. Lord Knows my Mom deserves some recognition! Anyway My Young neighbor Cody brought me a Starfish from the beach today. It's 3inches across and brown with the expected bumpy hide. I think it would be a cool addition to my tank if it didn't carry any disease or eat what few corals I have. Now if it wanted to stir up my sand and liked algae that would be just fine. I think the thing is and omnivore and would eat just about anything. It's in a little igloo cooler at the moment where I have been acclimating it since around 4pm. The salinity was pretty low and cold so I suspect there was some ice in there as well. I'm about to see if I can Id this thing. Any Op's would be welcome. Oh Ya I have a pic!

 

[cracker]

Well I think I have an Asterias Rubens or common Starfish. They are carnivores .they eat bivalves worms and carrion. So sounds like it wouldn't be very beneficial to my sandbed. I don't want the thing eating what worms I have. A reality check please with this next statement please . I could feed it a chunck of shrimp once in a while maybe?

 

[sirrealism]

Cracker. That is a common star and it is not reef safe. There are very few reef safe stars out there and all of the reef safe ones come from tropics. Reality check, Dont do it!!!

 

[cracker]

Thanks Sirr, I won't put the star in my tank. I got it in a plastic strawberry basket in the sump. I'm fishing on Friday I'll release it then.

 

[sirrealism]

Good deal. I used them to feed a pair of harlequin shrimp I had. They were great for that. Before they had a chance to do much of anything the shrimp had them. I would always put the star on the other side of the tank from the shrimp. It was cool to watch and it would take about 30 sec before the shrimp were on the move hunting.