Star fish arms falling off.

[krzyphsygy]

My orange star fish(smooth) arms are comming off. A couple months ago iit was 2 arms missing. Now today I saw one comming off, nothing is eating it. I moved it to another tank and looked at it again and another arm is hanging off.

What the hell!!!!!!!!!!

 

[starmanres]

Orange Stars are extremely succeptible to water quality. If you are having swings in your PH or salinity, they will not do well. Usually starfish hold on to their arms unless there is a problem... So I would say your's sounds like it is very unhappy.

Keep your water stable before you put him back in and I hope he makes it.

Robert

 

[jag1979]

could be starving to death too

 

[krzyphsygy]

I have had him for 2 years and I keep SPS corals.

PH is 8.2-8.3
S.G. is constant at 1.026

The only thing out of whack is my Mag at 1600

I think he might be starving

I also heard they lose there arms when they are reproducing??

 

[IPowderBlueTang]

I also say it most likely is starving too death. I had many starfish in the past and they all came to this demise in a year or so!

 

[SHB]

Keep in mind star fish reproduce asexually. The process is called "fragmentation" (this is natural).

 

[Trilithon3]

krzyphsygy, what brand of salt do you use?

 

[andrewr]

SHB-actually I dont know any starfish that reproduce this way. Starfish reproduce sexually. The gonads are in the arms of the male starfish.

It is true that they can regenerate these arms, but really a stretch to say that they will do it in a aquarium. I think it is just a sign of impending doom. Sometimes when something dies, maybe we didnt cause it. That is a pretty long life, one that they might not have lived in the wild. I googled it and nobody knows how long they live but they have lived up to 8 years in an aquarium.

 

[krzyphsygy]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9215560#post9215560 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Trilithon3
krzyphsygy, what brand of salt do you use?

Tropic Marin Pro reef, I am switching becuae I just tested my new water change batch and the Mag was 1710ppm. Dang right and thats at 1.026.

 

[bradl]

my starfish dropped two of his arms and they both grew into healthy adults.

 

[Im14abeer]

I have what I am guessing is the same starfish, purchased as echinaster sp. Real descriptive huh? It has a linkia body type, but is much smaller, only around 3" tip to tip. I'd guess yours is starving, and trying to spread itself around. A type of last ditch effort at reproduction? I fear for mine also, the only thing I've ever seen it eat was a slimy yellow sponge. And it made quick (for a starfish) work of that. I'm going to try some frozen, high sponge content food like Mega marine angel. Have you ever seen yours eat anything? I'm somewhat disapointed in myself for buying this creature, I didn't know the depth things like this could be researched to. Good luck, I hope others with experience with this animal will chime in.

 

[waterfaller1]

I have a burgundy linckia that lost all six of his legs. All six grew into new stars. This was last year some time and they are still going strong.

 

[rosshind]

Hold on... A star fish with 6 legs? I didn't know they existed. I was always tought that all echinoderms had a five point symetry.

 

[rustybucket145]

Nope, they come in several different shape, size and leg number.