Star fish - rotting tips?

[Insane Reefer]

Hello,
I bought a sand sifting star a couple of weeks ago. Seemed fine until I noticed yesterday that it looks like the tips of two of its arms are rotting off.

Tank is doing well, No2, No3, Ammonia are all good. I have had a problem with heat - the tank has risen as high as 84.6F, but the softies and other inverts seem fine. I did also loose a large feather duster, but snails are all fine (I use snails to sort of gauge since they seem to be the most sensitive), as well as the hermits.

Any idea's? Can it get better? Should I remove the starfish?

 

[Insane Reefer]

One of its legs fell off today. Anyone know why this might be happening?

 

[Travis L. Stevens]

Unfortunately, this means one of two things. First, if it had been in the tank for an extended perioud of time, then it's starving to death, and it is usually too far gone in order to do anything about it. Second, they will waste away with poor acclimation. They can be very sensitive to changes.

FWIW, if you're going to use any animals to gauge the health of an environment, snails are actually quite durable and wouldn't be a favored choice. Unfortunately, the feather duster that you lost and the starfish that you are losing make more favorable candidates.

Sorry to hear about this.

 

[Insane Reefer]

Hmmm.
Which do you think is more likely? I think my acclimation practices are good. Starvation would be my guess - It was sort of larger then I wanted for my 8g, but the only thing available at the time - and I don't add much food - just pellets for the crabs and shrimp. Meaty foods once a week targeted to the stars...

 

[greenbean36191]

In an 8 gal it would have run out of food veeeery quickly. The stars primarily feed on interstitial life in the sand and usually don't take to supplemental feeding. Even without food it should have been fine for a few months though. The time frame points to acclimation/ salinity issues as the cause. It may have been at your end or it may have been somewhere else along the chain of custody.

 

[Insane Reefer]

I found out when talking to the LFS guy that he has started to fore-go acclimation...
Not sure if this is "no acclimation" is for everything, or just fishes, but he says he was loosing 1/5- 1/4 of his shipments when he was doing a proper drip acclimation (I assume from the ammonia contacting air and going toxic, correct?), but since he has stopped acclimating, he's loosing 1 fish in 10.
But the last 2 inverts I've bought from him have died within a month.
Salinity might be an issue - it is a tiny tank and I do loose water from it, but I try to be good about adding makeup water every few days - my salinity has never been over 1.023-.024, that I know of, and I try to keep the salinity a little on the lower side to compensate for over salinization.

 

[J. Montgomery]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10378291#post10378291 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Insane Reefer
I found out when talking to the LFS guy that he has started to fore-go acclimation... But the last 2 inverts I've bought from him have died within a month.

That could very likely be the reason the last two inverts have died. Personally, I wouldn't buy anymore snails, shrimp, crabs, etc . . . from that location.

 

[greenbean36191]

I would definitely look into how the LFS is acclimating their inverts.
I would also bump the salinity up. Keeping it low isn't doing your inverts any favors. They'll be fine to at least 1.028, but 1.024 is about the lowest some inverts can go before they start running into problem, especially long-term.