Blue Linckia questions

[SanguinesDream]

Originally Posted by reefwars

to me starfish are food for shrimps:P

Noooo! Don't say that, they might hear you.

[Delphinus]

Interesting. I used to think stars were needing fairly long acclimations, I always dripped mine over a ridiculous number of hours .. so it is nice to hear that this may not be needed.

Two thoughts, however, that I'd like to add to this:

1. It was my understanding as of a few years ago at least, that the eating habits of non-predatory stars (such as fromia and linckia and the others that look like those) is just not really understood. Whether they adapt to captivity or not is largely based on whether they adapt to eating whatever is available to them in the tank.

2. Some things seem to need to be acclimated. Shrimp for sure can suffer from osmostic shock. I don't think they need a huge dripping period but definitely not too instantly.

[mrhasan]

I know that to some extend, exposing starfish to air cause death is a myth. Here are some links to defend my claim:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfOBqEPX6GM

(move to 0:50 and you will see some blue starfishes, possibly linckia, are exposed to air due to low tied. If air exposure was bad for them, they would possibly be endangered by now)

http://greennature.com/article29.html

(this article says that starfish can be stressed when exposed to low tides since their body doesn't have the ability to moist up or something for extended period of time; something that SPS can do to tackle low tide)

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/sh....php?t=1497693

(refer to post 6)

http://www.ultimatereef.net/forums/a.../t-205142.html

(one post presents two scientific papers; one saying air is harmless while other say it can harm)

Air exposure can affect every marine creature to some extend. But I don't think it is as religious as many sources claims that air is fatal to starfish. The only common marine life for which air exposure is instantly fatal in this hobby is sponge (there should be others too but atleast not starfish).

Please do correct me if I am wrong

[naesco]

Originally Posted by albert_dao

OKAY.

I haven't done this hundreds of times. My bad. Oh no, wait...

Look, here's the real problem: Collecting and shipping use to really suck. I mean it was TERRIBLE. This was a few years back, so most of the Linkias entering the trade were already in a state of terminal health. So regardless of whether or not you spent the ten years acclimatizing them, they died. People go the impression that they were unreasonably sensitive.

Since then, collection techniques have improved, packing has improved and the overall health of the animals is much better than it use to be. As long as you take the time to make sure your salinities don't vary drastically, you will be fine. On the other hand, if you bought an animal that was already terminal, no amount of fussing over the acclimatization will save it from turning into a eroding slimy blue ball of snot.

TL : DR - there's no magic voodoo behind salinity. If your LFS has a salinity of 1.025 and you have the same, just float, cut and dump. Acclimate if it makes you sleep better at night. If your salinity varies by a point or two, acclimate, but it's probably not going to be a game breaker. If you salinity varies a lot, well, you shouldn't have purchased the animal in the first place.

I am happy you are an agreement with me.
Yes collection and shipment is much much better because of the efforts of the fishers and exporters.
But we as aquariists must also make the effort to insure that the sailnity, temperature and PH in the bag we bring from the LFS is the same as in our tanks. We can't assume it is the same. We accomplish this by slowly acclimatizing the linckia (fish or invert) so that the animal is not stressed.