Really need help. I have been searching, with no luck!, everywhere for an answer as to why our brown brittle starfish has just started to disintegrate. It started with a hole in its center. Not all the way through but just on top. Now he is just coming apart everywhere. Legs falling off and body looks almost like he is being eaten away. Main tank water checks out fine and I have moved him to a hospital tank with new water (also fine) and his own piece of live rock. He does not want to eat. This happened shortly after I added a flame scallop and goby. CAN I HELP HIM???
HELP!!! - Brittle Star Disintegration - sooooo pathetic
- Thread starter Kingfishhead
- Start date
Because starfish is mostly CaCO3. they require an exceptable level of Ca and Alkalinity to live. Check these level in your tank. Quick change in salinity will kill most starfish because they are extreemly sensitive to salinity, much more so and other animals.
How long have you have this starfish?
Minh
How long have you have this starfish?
Minh
Its more than likely too late based on your description... they can recover missing limbs, but once the main body starts to disintegrate, its probably a goner. I agree with Minh though, its most likely a water quality issue. Assuming there were no salinity/temp/etc shocks it could also be food... if they are not fed, they do start to die. I remedy that by 'snowstorm' feeding my fish a homemade mash every few days (everything gets a bit to eat that way).
Here's the recipe:
http://reefs.org/library/Homemadefood.htm
Wade
Here's the recipe:
http://reefs.org/library/Homemadefood.htm
Wade
OK. my husband says, salinity and temp were identical to what was changed. Is it possible that this is happening because the little guy just ate to many turbo snails - he put 12 in on thursday and found 8 empty shells on saturday morning? I read that they can "explode" doing this but still survive. Would this make his body disintegrate afterwards though?
It depends on what you use for measuring the salinity. Unless you use a refractometer, there can be error. Just having a small bubble on those swing arm or on the floating hydrometer can cause major erroe in reading. It is essentially immposible to get exact temperature. Water in the container just cool too quickly. Temperature match does not seem critical IME, as long as they are about 5 degree or so one way or the other.Kingfishhead":2lmx3hlz said:
Animals rarely overeat to the point of causing death. Even human don't overeat to cause death on the short term basis (complication from obesity and high blood preasure and high cholesterol does not count). Star fish do not "explode" but can dump their stomach to the outside.
There is major water quality issue in your tank. That star fish did not eat 8 healthy snails. Your snails died due to 'something in the water' or too quick aclimation.
Bottom line is that your water quality is most likely a problem if 8/12 snails died in a short time. Water quality cause the die-off which further degrade the water quality. The mortality of other tiny animals in your tank is likely to be similar. You most likely head into a ammonia spike. Follow it closely or you will loose many more of your animals.
How long have you have the starfish?
Good luck.
Minh
I had 3 very red serpents do this exact same thing and my blue linkia right after they died. The legs started getting white and then the disk. It was like the flesh was falling off. When the legs fell off they would still move. The disk rotting while they were still alive and the food would fall right through it when it ate. It was the most pitiful thing i ever saw and been reluctant to buy any more after. I had these 3 stars for over a year and they did it at the exact same time.
Yes, exactly what happened! It was like a hairy white stuff hanging off of him as he was disintegrating. I thought something was on his body eating him. Unfortuantely, I am afraid we have lost him. 
Not even his detached legs are "alive" and moving. So sad as he was one of my favorite inhabitants. (my husband, who usually does these posts under this name, thinks I get a little too attached to my "sea critters" but I think that is because he likes the corals - guess they are animals too!). ANYWAY, thanks again for all of the help and I am sorry to hear this happened to others too. I wonder what it could have been - we actually found some more of the missing turbos so he didn't eat all that we had thought - although he did have a fondness for them! Actually hand fed him to try to slow him down but I think he had already developed the "taste" for them.
Not even his detached legs are "alive" and moving. So sad as he was one of my favorite inhabitants. (my husband, who usually does these posts under this name, thinks I get a little too attached to my "sea critters" but I think that is because he likes the corals - guess they are animals too!). ANYWAY, thanks again for all of the help and I am sorry to hear this happened to others too. I wonder what it could have been - we actually found some more of the missing turbos so he didn't eat all that we had thought - although he did have a fondness for them! Actually hand fed him to try to slow him down but I think he had already developed the "taste" for them.I had a brittle that was doing great for several months then I started findin bits of it all over my tank...........one day it looked like it had just blown apart......except for its center. I tossed the remains out but now I wish I had kept the main body to see if it would recover. :?: :?: :?:
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