Touching Linckias Bad?

[Synirr]

A customer's linckia died right after he got it home a couple of days ago. My boss is attributing this to one of our employees picking it out of the tank with her bare hand, and another employee agrees that touching them is a death sentence. I've been touching them with my hands since I've been working there, since no one ever told me otherwise, and I haven't seen them "dying within hours", as I am told they do. Sometimes I unpack them when we get a shipment, which normally involves me just grabbing them out the bag and plopping them in the tank, and we don't have any more deaths than usual on weeks I do this. I am inclined to think that this is a myth, especially after doing a search and finding nothing about not touching them, but I wanted to confirm... hell, one site even recommended touching them to see if they are firm before buying
My theory is that linckias are just sensitive and die fairly frequently, and people are grasping at straws trying to explain it. Any ideas?

 

[callell]

picking it out of the tank

There's the problem

Exposing the Star to Air, should have been bagged underwater

 

[SkiFletch]

Agreed, many starfish do not like being exposed to air. You can touch them all you want, just bag them underwater as callell said.

 

[callell]

Also should have mentioned that Links also require a very long acclimitization period

I have 3 Links and acclimitised them for 6 hours +

 

[Synirr]

That's what I was thinking, thanks for the clarification guys