Id?

[vromb]

I'm stumped--it's as though a starfish and tiger-tail cucumber mated.. it's probably about 1 1/2inch long.. anyone know what this thing is????

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[navyreefer]

Pretty cool looking whatever it is.

 

[seedless reefer]

Far Out!

 

[fishfiend]

Linkia starfish arm. probably dalmation linkia. Congrats. Thats a $15 sand sifting freebie. If it's a well established system you will no problems with these guys. They do need a lot of microfauna in the sand and things so if the systems hasn't been up for a year you might want to donate him until you're ready. They break arms really easily and the arms almost always seem to regenerate into new ones.

 

[seedless reefer]

Starfish arm/regeneration sounds like its right on but I've never seen a linkia with those colors.

 

[fishfiend]

We had them all the time. They tend to have little blue tips. Correct me if its not a linkia... I might have gotten it switch.

 

[vromb]

interesting.... so a broken-off arm got in my tank and now it's growing a body that makes sense...

 

[seedless reefer]

Does that mean you don't have linkias in your tank?

If that is the case than you have a mystery indeed.

 

[vromb]

never had a linkia, havent added anything new to the tank in a very long time.. the tank is healthy and has been established for a few years now, hopefully he'll do well... how big do these guys get?

 

[seedless reefer]

Mine is like a 6" diameter but I have seen some real whoppers.

If you don't have a linkia I don't see how it could be that then unless you were visited by the starfish fairy.

You haven't added anything. Hmmm maybe you had a linkia hitchhiker who is finally showing himself.

Be interested to see other opinions on this thing.

 

[FutureInterest]

Wow a starfish regenerating its whole body from a single arm? That's freaky as hell. I think you should kill it just to be on the safe side.

 

[fishfiend]

It's actually not uncommon, particularly for this species (I double checked it's a Dalmatian Linckia Star) to regenerate whole bodies from arms, which they seem to lose a lot. Since they tend to have a large amount of mouth tissue, there is normally mouth tissue on the arm large enough to regrow. If there wasn't the arm would eventually die due to lake of food and the starfish would just grow a new one.

The bodies are very slow to grow back so that little guy could have been wandering in from a coral piece or rock as a hitchhiker for a while. Now that you've seen him, you'll probably notice it everywhere. My particular favorite is when they just hang from the glass like "Hi... I'm new here..." so cute. I used to find "stumpies" and "one-armed bandits" in a few of my tanks from LR. But I couldn't keep them because my tanks were on the small side and too new.

 

[george]

If you don't have any stars in the tank at the moment, this guy can sterilize a sand bed in short order.

But it is cool to watch the regeneration in action.