Rookie mistake?

Long story short! I have a dsb and was going to add a few more Nus snails (have 7 now) in a 75 gal - I went to my trusted lfs to pick some up. I ask how many more of these snails would I need - he told me 20 to 30 I only have 2 clowns, lawnmower and cardinal at this time. So they convinced me to get a sand sifting star.
Two things
#1 I have read both good and bad things about these guys on stripping the SB.
#2 I did not quarantine since I don't have sand in my QT.
Should I have QTed? Did I make a mistake on the starfish? My rock work is on the glass and fairly secure.

I want to start putting corals in my tank over the holidays.

The aquarium is 4 months old yesterday.

 

You made a few mistakes, but just regular rookie mistakes.

The sand sifting star is good, great at sifting. But it needs alot of nutrients in the sand to survive since that is where it lives and needs to eat also, Since you only have that low of a bioload in a 75g, there wont be enough organics, nutrients, etc in the sand for it to survive.

SSAME thing with the snails...Basically the same thing, becuz they need stuff to survive..

 

In my opinion your tank is too young to support a sandsifter starfish and also too small. Yes it will probably do well for months but than the slow decline.

Most things that you can see are not going to come in on a starfish and you can not treat a starfish secondary to their sensitivity to medications, alterations in SG and ph.

If possible I would return it and go with the orginal plan of more sand dwelling snails.

Good Luck.

 

I would never advise anyone getting a SS Star in a DSB of less than 200+ gallons that has been established for min. 6 months. Unfort. smaller tanks just do not have enough food in the DSB and a tank that has only been established for 4 months is still in its infancy.

The SS Stars also have a tendency to wipe out a lot of the beneficial organisms that live in your DSB.

I would advise bringing it back to your LFS. It's no surprise that they will sell you a SS Star when it's not the best thing for your tank or your wallet. The LFS owners unfortunately do not have a sterling track record for the most part.

 

Yea was feeling I made a mistake
So option #1 bring back to lfs
#2 add extra food - as in put a sinking pellet under him every once and a while?

 

Yea and I was starting to trust them
Just to clarify on the age of the tank - it's 4 months with fish - 5 1/2 months from cycle start. I know it's still in it's infancy that is why a small bio load at this time. I will be adding a fish and coral over the next month. (2 coral and 1 fish after x mass) the coral first then a fish.

 

I hope you dont feel like we are ganging up on you - I see three of us posted almost the same thing simultaneously. Sounds like you are taking the right approach for the most part tho with going slow and realizing how important the age of the tank is.

I would go with a CUC from reefcleaners.org. There is a 10% discount on this forum for this retailer. The owner's name is John Maloney and trust me when I tell you he is a model retailer. Just search for him on this forum and see what others have experienced with him.

For your 75 gallon tank - I would eventually(meaning incrementally increasing to the following maximums) stock up something like this:

200 Dwarf Ceriths (they are .15/ea with John and you will get more like 300 if you order 200)

50 Nassarius
50 Florida Ceriths
25 Nerites
10 Limpets
5 Fuzzy Chitons (cause they're really neat IMO!!!!)

That kind of CUC will not disturb the other life in you DSB and will also not starve to death like a SS Star. Dwarf/Florida ceriths spend most of the day under the sand and only come out at night for the most part so they are not visually distracting during the day in the DT.

Hope this helps!!!

 

I wish I could buy from reefcleaners - I have only seen good things and would love to! But I live in Canada and they don't ship to Canada So I have to pick through 2 or 3 locations to find a cuc. None of them have that type of variety - so I am kinda limited on what I can get at this time.

 

Oh man sorry to hear that!!!

Yeah the international shipping of live animals can get a bit complicated - even if it's to our friendly, quiet neighbors to the north!

 

A sand sifting star is one of the worst things you can do, it will eat every live thing out of your sand and quickly starve. They are NOT detritus eaters, they eat live foods and will strip your sand of everything good.

I can tell you this first hand as I ignored the advice of all my friends and added one to a well established two year old 100G system with a 5-6" 330 lb Southdown DSB crawling with spaghetti worms, mini brittle stars, baby nassarius, pods and who knows what else. Withinn two months it looked like the Sahara Desert, not a thing left!

I took two years of cups of donated live sand, countless bottles of Ocean Pods and lots of work to get the DSB back live again and never again. I hope this makes you think about your purchase and do much more research. Take it back.