starfish help needed

[rossikey]

I have a lovely starfish think it was a maritius starfish.......lovely orange and red...
A couple of days ago we noticed it looked like part of his leg was cut.....and the end of another of his legs was like skinned........this morning we have got up and his leg that looked cut was hanging on by a thread literally...which has now dropped off and his other leg is the same.looks skinned at the tip........Does anyone know what could cause this...is he ill or do you think it could be something attacking him....please help he is lovely and i dont want to lose him........we do have a hospital tank should we need to treat him

Tank....jewel 180 full of live rock..........
2 Clowns(nemo)
2 green Chromis
2 Blue chromis
2 black/white 4 stripe humbug fish
1 powder blue tang
1 yellow tang
1 other juvenile starfish (who is fine)
1 blue cheek goby

clean up crew...
10 turbo snails
1 dancing shrimp
2 blue leg crabs
1 rather large red brittle star

 

[Navarre]

Place him in the Hopsital tank immediately.

Im afraid to say that the chances of his survival are not good
How long have you had the starfish? When you added it to the tank how long did you take to acclimatise it? Starfish are extremly sensative to being acclimatised or changes in the water (even a small change in PH). I have known starfish die through poor acclimatisation up to 9 months after introduction Basically what happens is the starfish litterally dissintergrates before your ees. Sometimes this happens o ver the space of a few hours (yes that quickly) or they will have a slow rate of a couple of weeks. Unfortunately the result is usually always the same

I would get itin the hospital tank fast so that it cannot polute the main tank any further. Do not expose the starfish to the air as this will also harm them as they can get pockets of air trapped within their bodies at times.

I have had blue and red lijnka starfishdie from the same symptoms. the red lasted 6 months, the blue lasted 2 weeks I have had far more success with sand sifter starfish and have 2 in my tanks (nearly a year now) and no lossses from them at all.

 

[rossikey]

Thank you.....sadly he did disintigrate rather rapidly in the hospital tank.....now it looks like my other juvenile starfish is suffering the same fate......They were acclimatised over a couple of hours with water dripping into the bag..the juvenile has been in the tank around 6 months....my maritius starfish around 3 months maybe a bit longer....all test are fine......just wandering whether something is coming out at night and having a go at them.......such a shame.......i havent seen any of the sand sifting starfish for sale where we live...maybe i will keep an eye out.....

thank you anyhowfor your advice.....sadly there was nothing we could do.......such a terrible way these starfish die eh..maybe they should leave them in the wild....

 

[Navarre]

Im sorry for your loss.
I agree, we just dont know enough about these lovely creatures to know why they do this for certain. They are very fragile to changing conditions so even a ph spike that can rectify itself over a few hours can do the damage. At night the PH of the tank usually changes do to algeas giving off CO2 at night and changing the PH. During hte day they dont release C)2 so the PH rises again. This doesnt usually happen so much in sumps that are lit 24/7 as the light in the sump helps to compensate for this change. Im not saying that a PH spike was the problem but just trying to say that sometimes a change in the tank can happen so fast and then rectify itself without us even knowing. )

Sandsifters are far hardier and fascinating to watch as they burrow in the sand in search of food. I dont recomend them for a DSB though as they will sterilise the sand )