Starfish dying?

[PeeJ]

ive had a blue linkia in my tank for a couple days...and he was doin good. all the fish and eels were gettin along great. i get home today and there is white stuff that looks like its coming out of on the the starts arms where it opens up on the bottom. perhaps one of the eels got to it??

how well do they do healing up? it really doesnt look like its hurt other than that. i mean the eels are real good at making me bleed...id assume if they got after it i would really be able to tell.

your thoughts???

 

[grav]

I've seen stars loosing "stuff" from their oral cavity in pet stores... not a good sign.

I've had one for 6 months or so, and she never does anything like that. But you never know.

I wouldn't blame the tank mates, seems more of an internal thing than a fish picking at the star.

 

[PeeJ]

its not the oral cavity...its the split on the arms. maybe i should cut off the injured leg and let it regenerate a new healthy one...??

 

[Anonymous]

Sea stars are fairly delicate, PeeJ, it's all about water quality. Some are more so than others, and blue linckia would get my vote as one of the more delicate species. If it appears as though it's disintegrating, it is definitely on its way out. If you cut the leg off (which I don't think I'd do), you have to ensure it's in pristine water. At that point I'd also treat prophylactically with Spectrogram, I've seen it do wonders, but it won't do a thing if the water's not NSW quality.

 

[PeeJ]

hmmm i dont know what to do...its moving around and stuff. its wierd...hopefully it makes it

 

[Anonymous]

What was your acclimation procedure and how long did you acclimate the star? Blue linkias are notoriously poor shippers. If I were to try a blue linkia, I'd probably do about a 6-8 hr drip acclimation, and only purchase a specimen that's been in the LFS for at least a month and is still healthy and moving around. Even then, as Seamaiden said, these stars really need pristine water quality--0s across the board on nitrites, nitrates, ammonia, etc.

 

[Anonymous]

Also, if your guy does make it, blue linkia are not carnivorous like brittle stars or serpent stars--they're algavores, so he'll spend most of his time cruising across the live rock and grazing on microalgaes.

 

[Anonymous]

PeeJ, we told you what to do. I think something like this that's on the more delicate side may be beyond your scope at this point, remember, you're still pretty much completely new at this.

Sharkkman, good point on feeding.

 

[Anonymous]

ime, 3 of the most common causes of starfish 'disintegration' are improper acclimation, and improper Ca/alk levels

as stated above, you should only get a linka that you know is healthy, from seeing it in an lfs for awhile, and acclimate to your tank slowly, after verifying that you sg/Ca/alk levels all match nsw

you should never buy a linkia sight unseen-too big of a crap shoot

 

[qwit10]

I have tried Linkias on three different occasions. All unsuccessful! Two of those times they suffered from the same affliction that you are writing about. It seems as if that is the beginning of the end. The ends of the rays start to rot away and eventually they end up expelling their guts. I had them in exceptional water conditions on both occasions when this happened. Neither time did the Linkias survive longer than about a week. I pretty much attribute the loss to residual transport stress. Linkias seem to be very sensitive creatures. On my first attempt the star just began to lose his rays without the ends turning white and disintegrating. One of the rays continued to move around the tank and began growing a new body. He lasted for about a month and then mysteriously disappeared. Good luck, but I wouldn't bet on it making it. Keep water conditions optimal and stay on top of water changes.

 

[PeeJ]

Screw it. It was only 15 bucks....still feel bad for the little guy. I acclimated him for a good while. Dripped him and then took a nap. So maybe my water isnt as clean as I'd like it to be

Thanks for the responses.

 

[samsdada]

Your problem with the linkia stems from salinity shock. This was probably not your fault. Blue linkias are most suseptible to this and are often collected by individuals who do not understand their demands. I lost one the same as you when I first started. I tend to over do it when it comes to acclimation so I am fairly sure it was not my fault. I have read it can take a few weeks for the white spots with the 'stuff' coming out to form after the initial salinity shock.

Other linkias such as the orange linkia are much hardier than the blues. I have two orange linkias. I had one of them fall off of the glass into an anenome. I came home from work and found it. Likely it had been there all day because it was partially dissolved. I pulled it out immediately and expected it to die. Instead the dissolved portions just slowly sloughed away. It lost almost one entire arm and parts of the others but seems to be recovering.

I would highly recommend an orange linkia over a blue on your next try. Just acclimate them very slowly and try to get one that has been in the store for a while with no signs of salinity shock.

 

[Anonymous]

In case you'd like to try again....

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/issues/ ... toonen.htm

From the article:
"These animals are notoriously delicate shippers, and more often than not a beautiful blue star starts to show white discoloration and begins to literally disintegrate a week or two after shipping. There are many ideas about why this happens (including osmotic or pH shock, bacterial and fungal infections, etc.), but unfortunately no one really knows what the ultimate cause of this problem is."

 

[PeeJ]

Thanks for all the replies. I knew they were delicate, but I had no idea the range of unsuccess rates. Guess that goes to show, that when you have 15 dollars, buy a 6-pack and some ciggarettes instead of starfish.

 

[Anonymous]

I have not seen many Blue Linkias without something that did not look healthy. I was looing for a good one without any unusual "spots" on them. One of my LFS had a a few that looked real good......however when I some questions about them this guy takes them out of the water to examine them. Ughhhhhhhhhh! The only thing I get from them now is Liverock.

 

[Anonymous]

As stated above, your problem likely came from salinity shock. Linkias should take an hour or two dripping for every point of difference in salinity. Some of the experts even take up to 24 hours on a slow drip with an air stone.

Another problem might be water quality.

Sadly, even with a very slow aclimation and great water quality, they can die of a bacteria they carry. So it may not have been your fault at all.

I tried one a month or two ago, VERY slow aclimation with no change in temp and good aeration. He went into my reef which, by some miracle, has absolitely zero everything, including niTRATES, and perfect calcium levels and pH. He died a week later in the same way yours is going.

Now here's why I think he had a starfish bacteria. I had a sand sifting star that had survived two moves and even lived through a move in the same tank as three hermits that died...and that was before I even knew about acclimating...He was indestructable. The sand sifter died three days after the linkia...coincidence? maybe, but nothing else in my tank, including shrimps, crabs, snails, and corals showed any sign of anything wrong and the water was perfect.

So try again if your water quality is good, but let the tank go starfish fallow for a while in case it is some starfish disease.

Good Luck