my star fish is losing legs

[sillygoose]

I have a sand sifter that I've had for a couple of years. Recently it got into a tangle with a big brittle star (aka the kraken). A day or two later, the sifter had a big chunk of arm missing. I thought it was from their weird altercation. It seemed to be very sluggish and I was worried about it mixing up with kraken again, so I moved it to my nano.

After a couple of days in the nano, it looked dead. I was about to give it burial when I saw some faint movement. I chucked it down into the fuge and it seemed to a little stronger. My sand was starting to get some little patches of brown so I moved it back to the show tank. Well, we moved it back to the fuge last night because it lost another arm.

So my question...is there a disease that causes them to lose arms? It almost looks like they start to pinch off before they break. It may not have had anything to do with the kraken, or maybe the sifter was already getting weak and the kraken was just being opportunistic. anyway, does anyone know about this?

 

[aquaph8]

My linkia did the same thing. I left it in the tank for a week hoping it would move as my sand slowly starting getting brown around it. Finally I started getting some cyano around that area and I removed it. Im still not sure it was dead when I removed it but I assumed it was do to the sand issues. It didn't stink at all like most dead stuff you remove from your tank. I know this doesn't help much but just thought I would share.

 

[fishaholic911]

I have had linkia's shed arms as a spawn and then there was two Hope it does the same for you.

 

[sillygoose]

This guy looks like he's sort of falling apart bit by bit. I wonder if he is missing a micro-nutrient. Everything else is doing so well. I also wondered if my sand has gotten depleted. By this I mean I wonder if there were enough critters in the sand for him to eat. I've heard that this can be a problem.

 

[Bifferwine]

It could be that it ran out of food, but I'd be skeptical of that being the reason if you've already had it for years. Usually that only takes a few months to happen. What are your nitrates at? Nitrates can cause stars to lose legs and pretty much disintegrate.

Its legs can break off and form new stars (a form of reproduction) if the legs still contain part of the oral disk. But it doesn't sound like that is what's happening to yours.

 

[sillygoose]

nitrates are zero