Starfish Problem

[lenny]

This morning, I discovered that my Pink Mosaic Starfish is having problems. One of the tips of his legs seems to be disintegrating. Another leg is starting to go at the very tip as well I think.

My tank levels are all good except for my nitrates, which are high, but run in the "safe" zone on the test strips (around 20 i think). He's been fine up til this morning. I don't have any fish that pick on him, though I can't vouch for what the hermit crabs do at night, lol.

Any thoughts or ideas? Anyone have experience with Mosaic Stars, or have something like this happen to any of their starfish?

Is there anything I can do to try to save the starfish, or do I need to get it out of my tank before it dies and starts decomposing?

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Starfish are a tricky lot. Most, including your mosaic (Im guessing a Nardoa sp.) are pretty unknown in their dietary requirements. They are also extremely sensitive to changes in salinity, temperature, and nitrate levels. When things aren't to their liking, they just start to fall apart, literally. Usually this process is not easily reversable. Get your nitrates down, keep the water params stable, and cross your fingers and toes.

 

[glxtrix]

agree

 

[lenny]

fair enough! Thanks, lol. I was wondering if I should try spot feeding it? I keep a bag of frozen seafood chunks in the freezer, and every few weeks I feed it directly, the rest of the time it scavenges. My other starfish (dont know the scientific name, but it's a sand colored "sand-sifting star" (according to atlantis ) and it's doing fine. The Mosaic is still moving around the glass, though not as much as usual, and I'm noticing that three of its tentacles seem to be affected, One very badly, two very minorly, just on the tips.

But the moral is (and im asking here..hahah) ... there IS a chance that he can survive, or would it be best to get it out of the tank if the condition worsens much more?

 

[vettesarebest]

I would leave him because if you take him out then it will cause even more stress. Like panda said keep the water parameters stable. Taking him out of the tank would be doing the complete oposite and it would tatally change ta watar parameters. I'd leave him.

 

[jmaneyapanda]

Thats up to you. I havent seen many starfish recover from that type of spontaneous degenration. I have "called it quits" in the past once this reaches a certain point, because it doesnt seem to stop, and only adds decomposition effects to the tank, but I, BY NO MEANS, am an expert. If you have 3 arms that are affected, I dont know if I coukld honestkly say there's much hope, but it wont hurt to try. Luckily, I dont think smaller stars like this have much to them, so they wont pollute like a big dyig anemone, or the such.

When I worked in a LFS in New York, we got a GIANT pillow star in once (honestly the size of a throw pillow). These dont really have arms like the typical stars, but instead looked like a big pillow. We kept it in the live rock tank, and it moved around and did it's thing for like 3 weeks, and then parked in one spot. Well, no one really noticed it had stopped moving, and it looked fine. One day I went to move it to vacuum up some detritus in the tank, and it was dead. Man, was it dead. We actually had to close the store for three hours to ventilate the place, because people were getting sick. A rather unrelated story to your question, but this just reminded me of it (and sent me into a bout of nostalgic nausea- I can almost smell it again!)

 

[vettesarebest]

Aww was it worse than a dead anenome? It had to be if you closed the place!

 

[vettesarebest]

Lenny wrote: fair enough! Thanks, lol. I was wondering if I should try spot feeding it? I keep a bag of frozen seafood chunks in the freezer, and every few weeks I feed it directly, the rest of the time it scavenges. My other starfish (dont know the scientific name, but it's a sand colored "sand-sifting star" (according to atlantis ) and it's doing fine. The Mosaic is still moving around the glass, though not as much as usual, and I'm noticing that three of its tentacles seem to be affected, One very badly, two very minorly, just on the tips.

But the moral is (and im asking here..hahah) ... there IS a chance that he can survive, or would it be best to get it out of the tank if the condition worsens much more?

Yes indeed it is called a sand sifting star. Did you buy the mosiac at atlantis? I used to work there!:boo:

 

[jmaneyapanda]

oh, yeah, it was thousands of rotting anemones, left in the equatorial sun, in a closed room. it literally made my eyes water. I shouldve asked for hazard pay.

 

[lenny]

I think the worst smelling dead thing from my tank was one of the big sea hares, lol. The pillow star incident sounds pretty.... gross, haha

It seems that "Big Pink" has moved to the highest flow section of the tank to blow the dead parts of its limbs off..... although I watched the decay spreading during the day, the affected parts seem to have been blown off at this point... effectively reducing the length of four of its legs by about a half inch to an inch, with one leg completely intact. It is still moving around a bit, and no signs of necrosis other then the tip of one leg (that just recently decayed enough to almost fall off). The ends of the affected legs are very ragged from the decay but don't seem to be getting worse at the moment.

it's odd though, because he's whistling a tune through that big mouth/stomach, and I think it's "smells like teen spirit".......

 

[tsciarini]

this entire conversation is kind of making me ill... lol

 

[vettesarebest]

Lol Bluahh. I didn't really know how to spell the throw up noise. Lol sry that was gross!

 

[lenny]

Well... he's not dead. He moved around the tank walls all night last night, and this morning he was feeding off the algae on the live rock, using his legs like normal even though the tips have disintegrated. I guess I will just continue to monitor the little bugger!

 

[lenny]

I'm very happy. Big Pink is seemingly back to normal. Okay, he's got three short legs, but still.. haha..... He's moving around the tank. He's eating well (ate 3 mysis and a small piece of mussel last night). He's got full suction back on all his limbs..... I think I saw him dealing blackjack last night at the shrimps card game...

 

[glxtrix]

lol, thats good to hear he's doin better