Serpent Star Issues

[firstlight10]

This morning I noticed my serpent star had lost at least one leg. He has been in the tank for over a year and had been doing fine up until today. Does anybody know what could have caused this and what I can do about it?

 

[lgreeeeeen]

Hard to say. Sometimes they shed a leg as a defensive mechanism to escape becoming another invert's/fish's lunch. Nothing to worry about though. It will regenerate.

 

[yakfishin]

Make sure you keep your water quality up for the next few weeks. When an invert has damage it is susceptible to getting infections if the water quality isn't good.

 

[firstlight10]

I don't have any aggressive fish or inverts. I checked water quality today and the results were as follows:
Temp- 80
pH- 8.2
Sal- 1.024
Ammonia and Nitrite- 0
Nitrate 10
Calcium- 600
Phosphate- .25
Alkalinity- 180

I will keep monitoring everything and back off my feeding in an effort to keep water quality up.

 

[AJSTITAN14]

I think a 5g might be too small and 80F is too high imo.

 

[ms123]

I don't think 80 degrees is too high, I've had a seprent star for 2+ years and over the summer months my water is at 82 degrees during the day. Never had issues.

 

[AJSTITAN14]

Don't know how big your tank is but dissolved o2 in a 5g at high temperatures is probably too low. temp affects dissolved o2, dissolved o2 affects how well/fast waste can be broken down in the tank. In a small tank these parameters can fluctuate wildly and stars are pretty sensitive to these types of changes and wild swings. This is why beginners are advised to get something between 30-55g.

Firstlight has had the tank for a year without crashing it so we can infer that the essentials of tank husbandry and maintenance are well in hand. An irresponsible person wold have crashed a 5g nano by now.

So, I personally think that some parameter is swinging too much over the 24 hour period or that there's just not enough food for the star in the 5g. We see a lot of "star was fine for a year and then died" stories in this forum. Usually its a Sand Sifting Star in a tank that's too small. Serpent Stars are a lot less demanding in this respect but I think that 5g tank might still be pushing it.

 

[firstlight10]

Just to correct a misconception, my tank is a 20 gallon long, not 5 gallon nano.

I am going to adjust my heater to drop the temperature to 78 degrees to see if that helps.

 

[AJSTITAN14]

Some Europeans refer to their tanks in Liters. So when I see 20L I think its a 20 Liter tank.