Starfish?

[pcameron]

I had a chocolate chip starfish in my tank and the other day it just stopped and a few ours later fell to pieces. As upseting as that was i just looked back into my tank and have a little half a starfish moving around on my glass? anyone know what might of happened or ever seen this. i only had the starfish two weeks and seemed to be doing fine.(everything else is still doing fine) kinda new at this and trying to figure out what happened

[Sylock]

Most star fish are very particular with their saline and all. How long did you aclimate this guy for? If the 'little' starfish doesn't look like a Choc Chip Star, it's problably a hitchiker from your rock. Pictures always help :)

[kmk2307]

Hi pcameron,
Do you test your water? If so, what is it testing out to be? Is it possible something has happened to the water chemistry recently that would be detrimental to him? How long did you have it before it died? What kind of fish and other tankmates do you have? Could one of them been bothering it?

Hope this helps and good luck finding out the cause,
Kevin

[pcameron]

all my tests were normal and i acclimated him for close to an hour. the only thing that was slightly different was the water level i was gone for the weekend and when i came back it had dropped a little more than normal. guess it put the salinity up to high. the little star fish looks like a chocolate chip starfish but only has two legs and hadly any color. he is tiny like the size of a dime and i can't seem to find him right now to take a pic of him.

[pcameron]

just found the little guy and i'm pretty sure he is a chocolate chip starfish. his tank mates were two pepermint shrimp and a couple little snails. nothing that really bothered it. i had him for about 2 weeks and he was pretty active up until i left this weekend come home and he had fallen to pieces.

[Sylock]

Most people recommend acclamate stars for 3-4 hours for future reference. Does the 'mini-star' look like the one if the first post of this tread: http://archive.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=134496&highlight=Harlequin+AND+Shrimp

[mirski57]

A little of topic..but...was your Chocolate Chip Star in a reef tank ? I know that these are not reef safe.

I tried one anyway, and it starting eatting other starfish as well as my corals, so it went back to the LFS quickly.