brittle star losing legs

[RevJDA]

I have two brittle stars in my tank, purchased at the same time, nearly three years ago. They have been thriving and growing well until just a few days ago. I noticed yesterday that the largest on had lost a leg well into the disc. Its color is good, dark green, except around the lost limb which is white. Orange "stuff" almost wormlike is coming out of the wound. I started to remove it from the tank when I noticed it was moving.

I called my LFS and talked to someone with lots of experience. He assured me that the leg will most likely regenerate. In fact, he had one that lost a leg well into the central part of the body and it still grew back. Today I noticed that the same brittle star had lost another leg. But what is even more disturbing the other brittle star I got at the same time is beginning to have the same problem.

The fish and corals in this tank are doing very well.

The only thing that I have done differently (about a week ago) was I used melafix to treat fungus I noticed in the tank. Are brittle stars sensitive to melafix? I couldn't find any cautions about using this product with invertibrates. And I have done the 25 percent water change recommended on the product label.

 

[racrumrine]

Inverts are the most susceptible to changes to water parameters or chemicals.

Sounds like there is a cause and effect with what you did.

If you have inverts, you should medicate you fish in a QT.

Hopefully, they will recover.

Best of luck,

Roy

 

[willhoward]

I had the same thing, some people even told me that it is splitting / multiplying, so I left it in the tank. Later the whole starfish disintegrated and was a mess getting out of the tank, spiking my water with NH4, NO2 and NO3. I almost lost everything.

I still don't know what caused it, may be age, water parameters, I don't know, but what I do know is what will happen if you keep it in you main tank. Rather move it to a QT just to be safe.

 

[RevJDA]

Same here. Both gradually fell apart and I removed them. The really spooky thing was that the disembdied limbs were moving. That's why I thought they were going to regenerate. An aqarist I trust implicitly told me they may.