Dead brittle star

[bronxer]

My brittle star died - a slow, painful death. It started to break up with little pieces of him in the tank. I had hoped he would get better, but when I saw him getting worse then I had to remove him from the tank. I did fairly large water changes to solve any problem with the water parameters - nitrates are low, phosphates are low, all other parametes are wnl.

Now I have a problem. All those little pieces are all over the place.

I clean it up using a baby nose suction device - works really good at feeding time too - but next morning it's back - on the sand, rocks, even on the glass. And if I touch it with my fingers, it turns my fingers yellow.

What the hell is this? I'll upload a picture as soon as I can, but has anything like this happened to anyone else?

Any suggestions? Is this the star fish attempting to reproduce itself? I do not think brittles can do that, but I cannot imagine what else it could be.

Thanks for any input.

 

[Savas]

By little pieces, do you mean the spines that cover the legs or the legs themselves?

If it is the spines, I would remove them.