High Tide Aquatics

Linckia Starfish - What's The Real Story

GDawson

GDawson

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So I was thinking of getting a linkia for the DT. There’s not much information on BAR and searches on the net have yielded conflicting results.

1) Don’t get them they always starve and die. Or fragment and die. Or dissolve and pollute the tank and kill everything.
2) Get them. They’ll work great as long as you have a 55gal+ tank that’s 1yr+
3) The red and marbled linkia are fine in a 55gal+/1yr+ tank, but stay away from the blue or purple they always fragment and die. Or they’ll fragment but the body will regrow arms. Or they’ll fragment and each arm will grow a starfish and the body will starve and die. Etc….

The only thing they all agree on is the sensitivity of the animal to water stability (SG, temp, ALK, etc…) and that it needs to be acclimated by the drip method.

So can someone with practical experience chime in and shed some light on this….

-Gregory
 
never had any success with them in any system I have tried them in. I think they really get set-up to die in the start of the CoC (Chain Of Custody).
 
The fellow who runs Tropical Fish World in El Cerrito claims that the only blue linckia he sells are ones that he has propagated via fissioning in his display tank and are all 1+ years old. When they get to full size he nicks them with a razor at the centre and they will split into two by themselves.

Nonetheless, the one I bought from him when my tank was only 2 months old turned to mush and died in less than a week. I've been hesitant to consider getting another since I've not had an adequate explanation of what about my tank made it so unhappy.

The sand sifting star fish I bought the same day as bayMAC is growing nicely and is a lot more active than any of the Linckia's I've seen.
 
bondolo said:
The fellow who runs Tropical Fish World in El Cerrito claims that the only blue linckia he sells are ones that he has propagated via fissioning in his display tank and are all 1+ years old. When they get to full size he nicks them with a razor at the centre and they will split into two by themselves.
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If you believe that, I own a bridge I'd like to sell you.
 
It is what he claimed. It does seem somewhat unlikely but I wasn't sure that it wouldn't work so I didn't rule it out completely. I think perhaps I'll just scratch linckia off my list permanently if they can't be captive propagated.
 
bondolo said:
It is what he claimed. It does seem somewhat unlikely but I wasn't sure that it wouldn't work so I didn't rule it out completely. I think perhaps I'll just scratch linckia off my list permanently if they can't be captive propagated.
Click to expand...

Some "claims" are not worth repeating and this is an excellent case for such a thing.
 
I've had two Linckia multiflora, the first lived in my tank 2+ years till it hitchhiked to a friend's tank on a chunk of rock, where it lived another year+ until his tank went nuclear-winter. The second I got shortly after the first, it had an accident at one point and lost an arm - both the body and the arm grew (very slowly) into full sized starfish and are still in my tank today, ~5yrs later. I don't know what they eat, but they've never bothered anything and nothing has bothered them, in a succession of mixed reef tanks. I drip-acclimated them in the beginning, but from there on they haven't had much special treatment, and um... well they've been through various moves, upgrades, alk swings, heatwaves, stupid-reefer-stuff, etc.

Getting cocky with my awesome starfish success, I picked up two Fromia (F. milleporella I think) stars once... it took them about a year to slowly shrink and shrink and shrivel away... never again. :(

Never tried the larger blue or purple ones, sorry.
 
I've heard by far more success with multiflora then any other.

Purple LInkia aren't really linkia. The business I worked at was the only supplier of the purple "linkia". If kept in a cooler tank they do "ok" but they really should be left in the ocean like much of the stars.
 
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