Starfish mortality

For some reason, I can't seem to keep starfish alive in my tank. I've had a sand sifter for about 2 weeks and have never seen it leave the sand bed...until yesterday morning. I woke up to find it hanging out on the glass, missing half of an arm. Thinking perhaps it managed to get itself stuck somewhere, I decided to just keep an eye on it. Now, its decomposing near a piece of rock. [smiley=disappointed.gif]

Last week, I took a chocolate chip starfish back to the LFS after catching it one morning, eating my favorite shroom (at least this one is still alive). As an exchange, I was given what I now believe to be a burgandy linkia star (not so easy to care for?), which lived 2 days then kicked the bucket in a big way.

As of about 30 minutes ago, my tank stats were:

tank has been running for about a month.
Ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: about 10
SG: 1.025 (needs a top off, but ran out of RO, have to visit the LFS in the morning!)
temp: 80.2


Tankmates that I know about:
1 fiji devil
2 3 strip damsels
12 small blue-leg hermits
4 turbo snails
5 nassarius snails
1 peppermint shrimp
1 emerald crab
Hey..just discovered a small, 6 pointed star hanging out on a piece of live rock! (I'm watching you..get away from that mushroom!! [smiley=stare.gif])

unknown number of bristle worms
about 10 various ricordia mushrooms, all came on the rocks

Is there another water parameter that I should be checking? I have the saltwater masters kit, and I know there are lots of other things I could be testing..but don't really want to buy tests for everything under the sun if I don't really need to.

Thanks in advance, sorry the post is so long!

newbie up! [smiley=2thumbsup.gif]

 

Nothing I see listed stands out as being a problem be it the tank inhabitants or the parameters. How long are you taking to acclimate it? Starfish need extra care when acclimating, they really dislike changes in salinity etc..

 

Everything in the tank was acclimated in new buckets via the drip method over the course of about 6-8 hours.

The sand sifter still seems to be alive, but probably not for long. Seems to be falling apart. [smiley=shame.gif]

 

Well there goes that theory...hmmmm :-/

 

Calfo told me that sand sifters need big tanks (he said 200 gallon, someone on the site has one for a while in a 120) with a healthy sand bed to survive. I had one in a 20 gallon and it fell apart too.

 

Matt is definately right, they do need a large tank with a sand bed to do well and they will decimate a small tanks bed of life but I think it would take more than two weeks to look this bad....unless maybe of course it was already underfed which there is always a good chance of.

 

Considering the tank the guy was in when I bought him was probably about 10 gallons, there is a good chance he was already starving when I got him. I've got about a 3" sand bed, but as the tank is fairly new there probably wasn't much to eat. At this point, I have to build up the gusto to remove a living creature to experience it's ultimate demise. Just keel over already..geez. [smiley=uneasy.gif]

 

[quote author=GraviT link=board=Inverts;num=1090306706;start=0#2 date=07/20/04 at 19:36:06]Everything in the tank was acclimated in new buckets via the drip method over the course of about 6-8 hours.

The sand sifter still seems to be alive, but probably not for long.  Seems to be falling apart. [smiley=shame.gif][/quote]


Yah, but did the others that had the starfish in the COC (chain of custody) do a 6-8 hour acclimation If it hit a wholesalers tank, I doubt it was acclimated.