Is my starfish dying?

[wuteva]

I purchased a red starfish yesterday and it intially seemed just fine in the tank. Today, I relcated it to the front, and it climbed up the glass, and later dropped and fell to the sand. It has only really moved very, very (2 inches) slightly since about 3 hours ago. Is it resting, or is it a bigger problem? I did notice a tiny bit of white matter (stringy, more like lint than mucus) on it. Help!!

[theatrus]

What species of star? How was it acclimated? Has it been out of the water at any time?

Starfish aren't speedy.

[wuteva]

embarassed to say I am unsure of what type it is. It is a red "garden variety" star (cost a whopping $6). It was acclimated by floating for over an hour, with 2 additions of my tank water added to the bag over the course of the hour. It was only out of the water when I removed it from the bag to place in the tank.

[bertoni]

Hmm, with starfish, measuring the alkalinity in the bag and in the tank is usually a good start to planning the acclimation. The animal could be dying due to osmotic shock. hard to say. Can you post a picture, either of your animal or a picture on-line?

[wuteva]

i believe it is a red linkia, if that helps at all...thanks

[bertoni]

Linckia often arrive in very poor condition, and are supposed to be prone to osmotic shock as well. I'd do a drip acclimation and watch the SG in the bag carefully if I were acclimating a Linckia. Most of the time, they don't seem to do well in tanks, anyway, though.

[crpeck]

Linckia have a really hard time with changes in salinity and pH and it does sound like he's in shock. Any white stuff coming out of him isn't hopeful either because when they go ... its like they disintigrate from the inside out.

Just watch him and as long as all this legs look plump and his center is full you have hope ...even if he's not moving.

Even if he drops a leg or two, you have hope ... although chances are dropping.

If his center disc starts looking collapsed that's worse yet.

You're lucky at this point that he's out where you can see him ... usually they like to crawl into your rocks and die where you can't possibly pull them out except in pieces .... although it is odd that he's sitting out there in the open in the light if he's stressed. Makes you wonder if it is because he's in such shock he can't move.

Sea stars like linckia usually need a slow drip acclimation over hours to have a shot. They shouldn't be exposed to air and you should try not to handle them. I had luck keeping a Burgundy star (Tamaria) alive when I'd about given him up for dead with some ZOE, which is a spirulina liquid product made by Kent. It worked for a while, but I still eventually lost the starfish.

They are really, really hard to keep alive and most of the people who are able to have very large and long-term well established tanks. I tried several (a marble frommia and a burgundy Tamaria) and finally concluded that my 55 wasn't big enough.

Good luck with yours! I hope he makes it ... let us know.

Cathy

[greenfroggiespawn]

what do they eat?

[crpeck]

Each sea star is different depending on where they're from but last I checked when I was trying to save mine was that no one really knows for sure what they eat.

The consensus is that even the ones that get some of what they need out of our tanks don't get everything they need and that even if you get them past the shock of acclimation, they'll slowly starve in the tank over a period of months .... maybe last a year or so.

There are a few people who have sea stars living in their tanks for a long time, but it seems most of those people have very large tanks that were well established with lots of live rock before they added the star. One theory I read is that some of them need certain kinds of sponges in their diets.

When I was trying to save my Tamaria, Dr. Shimek said I was wasting my time to blow that ZOE stuff into the cave where the star was hiding. But I did see the star show a feeding response when I did it and saw improvement. I'd soak seaweed in it and put it in his cave. But I spent several months feeding that thing and babying it several times a day, and finally brought it back to some level of health. Then, after all that .... it split (which is normal in the ocean to reproduce) and then completely disintigrated. Dr. Ron warned me that most stars can't survive a split in the tank and he was right.

I love sea stars and would love to have one, but after killing two in my tank I've settled for a serpent star which is cool, a good scavenger and very hardy. The sea stars just create a LOT of pressure because they are the first ones to be affected if you have any swings in pH, salinity, or ALK. I doubt I'll try one again, but if I do it will only be after all my parameters have stayed rock solid consistent for a long time.

Cathy

[crpeck]

If you're interested, there are some pics of my old star in my gallery after he had healed. You can see the scarring how his center was almost disintigrated and then grew back. He lost a couple of legs and then grew too many back ... that is what prompted the split.

Tamarias often have 7 legs, he lost a couple when he was sick, then grew too many and had 10 before he split and died.

It really was heartbreaking to lose that star. But what crashed him in the first place was just a 4 day weekend of my husband dosing my 2 part additive for Ca and ALK the wrong way. Ca spiked too high and ALK and pH dropped and the star almost disintigrated over that. See what I mean about pressure? No room for error with a sea star in the tank.

[snowman5373]

Yea, Linkias are really hard to keep. I have tried about 10 different linkias ( no joke ) and all have died withing weeks of putting them in. I have tried blues, reds and orange. I also could never get a linkia to spot feed. Most of them would mainly start shreding their bodies apart before they died.