Compatibility

[missdebz84]

Hi, I'm new to this so please help me out. I purchased a sand sifting starfish 3 snails a mushroom and another plant live thi.g that I forgot its name last friday, put them all in a 2.5 gallon tank. That night however, the starfish was standing on top of where the mushroom was put and ate it because it was gone the next morning. I contacted the petstore about it he zaid that things like this is rare but can happen if he's stressed from being in a different environment than what its used to. So yesterday i purchased a 10 gallon tank more salt warter crushed coral for the bottom of the tank and a heater. This morning i noticed that tje starfish hasn't moved since we put him in there. My question to you is, will the starfish and snails be compatible with the Supershrimp I purchased or will i have to ger rid of the starfish because I think it'll eat the shrimps. I'd rather give up on the starfish than the shrimps. The whole purpose of having a saltwater tank is becauze of the shrimps. I just wanted playmates for them.

Thanks in advance.

[Rob in Puyallup]

Hi Deb,

I don't know what you mean by "mushroom", was/is it an invert?

Starfish require a fully marine environment as far as I'm aware. Are you keeping the opae ula in high saline? Either way, I would think the shrimp would be quick enough to get out of the way of a starfish.

Some of the tiny hermit crabs available at pet stores are brackish safe, (If slowly acclimated). I have some in both of my tanks. They're very good at cleaning the live rock and are opae ula safe.

Rob

[shrimpy4]

Rob, how'd you go about acclimating the hermit crabs?

[Mustafa]

Welcome to the forum!

I don't see a problem with the starfish eating any shrimp, but the bigger problem is that Supershrimp do best at much lower salinities than what you are describing. They will live (not sure about breeding though) at full ocean salinity, but they seem to do better (and breed for sure) at about 1/2 ocean salinity (1/3 to 1/2 roughly...exact salinity is not important as long as you're in that range...). What you're describing is a full saltwater setup, not brackish. I would recommend reading the information pages here on Petshrimp.com and searching this forum to learn as much as possible about how to set up a proper tank for Supershrimp. Since your current animals probably won't live in brackish water at the above salinities, I would either set up a different tank for the Supershrimp, or bring your saltwater animals back to the store.

[missdebz84]

Thanks guys!

So I've decided to change my water to brackish and get rid of the starfish in fear that it might not survive in that kind of water, guy at the pet store said I can exchange him for something else if anything... Another question is, since one person said that hermit crabs are shrimp safe, what other critters can I put in the tank that are compatible with the shrimp as well as brackish water safe?

[Mustafa]

Thanks guys!

So I've decided to change my water to brackish and get rid of the starfish in fear that it might not survive in that kind of water, guy at the pet store said I can exchange him for something else if anything... Another question is, since one person said that hermit crabs are shrimp safe, what other critters can I put in the tank that are compatible with the shrimp as well as brackish water safe?

I would not put anything in there besides maybe snails. The whole point of having these shrimp is that they are different from other animals (don't need much food, no water changes, supershrimp in a literal sense). If you want to keep a community tank of weird critter, there are more than enough choices in freshwater aquariums, and even more in marine systems, including much bigger and more colorful shrimp.

[animal1998]

If you were sure you could keep feeding at good levels, mollies can live in brackish, fresh, and salt water. PetCo has a whole section for brackish fish. I think feeding and predation would be a problem though.