Red-legged Hermits Eat Starfish

[martinmcnally]

Caught two of my red-legged hermits going to town on my sand sifting starfish. Poor guy he hardly has many legs left. Safely in my sump now to hopefully recover. I had no idea these crabs would eat starfish.

[gobytron]

it's likely your starfish was already dying and the hermits were just scavenging.

[howdy20012002]

i was thinking the same thing.
did you just put the star fish in?
or do a really large water change?
starfish are extremely susceptible to changes in salinity.

[gobytron]

also prone to starving to death in systems that are either too new (I'd say anything under a year old and you're not making it easy) or the sand bed is just too shallow or the system to small (anything under 4" or 4 square feet of sand)...

I have a 50X18X27 inch tank with 3" of sand and I know a sandsifting starfish will starve within a year.

[martinmcnally]

No my tank is 4 years old and the star fish has been in there for at least a year. I could see him trying to get away from the crabs. This happened to me years ago too when a hitch hiker crab was eating another starfish I had. I removed the crab and the star fish recovered nicely. I will keep an eye on him, he is in my sump now, there is sand in there too. Hopefully it recovers now.

Martin

[gobytron]

what is your sandbed like?


A healthy starfish should be able to get away from a hermit, but stranger things have happened.

Just an FYI though, wit an established but too small/shallow sandbed, you would expect a sandsifting star to take about a year before it's appetite exceed the micro fauna in your sandbeds ability to reproduce fast enough.

[martinmcnally]

Sand bed is about and inch and a half deep with a mix of coarse and fine crushed coral. Its also looking a little dirty.

[gobytron]

Heres a really good site for info on this organism.

I highly suggest giving it a glance over.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/sndsftstrfaqs.htm