Sand sifting star has no legs after 2 days in tank!

[Titans_Reef]

So I added a sandstar to my 125g reef earlier this week and I went to see how it was doing which to my amazement it was missing all of its legs. It is still alive when I found it so I threw it in my fuge ontop of a rock and it went to the sand. Idk what could of ate the legs off of it so fast. My livestock is a naso, hippo, yellow tang, spotted foxface, hoveen wrasse, cleaner wrasse, pinkspot watchmen goby, bicolor blenny, mandarin, pair of clowns, some hermits, nassarius snails, and a fireshrimp. I havent seen anything picking at it but idk why it is missing its legs. Im hoping it will recover in the fuge. Anyone have an idea why?

 

[Flippers4pups]

Well what little I know of stars is that they are extremely sensitive to water quality changes. They take a lot longer to adjust and must be dripped much longer when placing them into a new environment. They have a "water" vascular system that can be damaged if not dripped properly. There is a ton of information on them out there.

So with that said, I'm not aware myself of anything that would pick on them that you have in your tank.

 

[MissKate]

I had the same thing happen to me. I drip acclimated for hours, put him in, and he buried himself. I thought all was well.
The next day I saw my orange diamond goby had dug him up and thrown him on the pile of his "discard" sand. The star only had two legs. Remembering the anecdote of the mollusk fishermen in New England who accidentally doubled the sea star population by cutting them in half and tossing the halves back, I remained hopeful.
The second day I gave up hope when I saw my rabbitfish and clowns picking at him.

I'm afraid I either stressed him out too much during acclimation- if I get another I'll go for at least four hours- or he was doomed before I ever got him.

Hope yours pulls through!

 

[Titans_Reef]

Yeah I dripped him for about 3 hrs and then put him in a bag to temp acclimate again since the container water was colder then my main tank. After it was done, I placed it inside and it was fine. I came home later that night and it was still ontop of the sand moving around. 2 days later it had no legs lol, after I placed it in the sump it crawled into a piece of LR fast and stayed there. Right now I cant see it so im hoping its in the sand. There are nassarius in my fuge so im pretty sure if it died I would see them go after the starfish since they eat my dying turbos.