HELP! Starfish loosing all of its legs!

[Oklahoma reef]

 

 I will update this post with more information when I get time as I am in a bit of a rush right now. I have had my starfish for over 2 weeks now and 2 days abo I noticed one of his legs got chopped off sure enough I found his leg af the bottom of my tank. 

 

Now 2 days later I notice another leg laying on the sand. Sure enough another leg got cut off. Both severed sections are about 1 inch. I do have a small Jabeo two-4 that runs at 40% power during the day and 20% power at night. Is it possible that he is getting his legs cut off by the wave maker ? Wave maker is about 8 inches of the sandbed. Could it be the anything else? 

 

20 long

4 bulb aquatic life t5- 4 different spectrum bulbs 

RW-4 wake maker 

2 Topfin 20 gallon rated HOB filters( one filled with chemipure elite, The other filter  floss) 

1-100w 1-200 w heaters 

 

 

8 Hermit crabs ( red and blue leg) 

2 trochus snails, 

2 nessarius snails 

2 marg snails 

1 osc clown( juvenile)

1 blue spotted yellow watchman goby

1 scooter Blenny

1 cleaner shrimp

1 rose pink sea urchin

1 starfish( never could find out the kind although it’s long and skinny with light and dark brown bands. 

1 horseshoe crab  A bunch of Xenia, GSP and zoa frags 

 

tempature 78-80f

salinty 1.24-1.26 ( tank swings every day due to daily top offs needed. I think 20 gallons paired with lots of surface agitation is the cause) 

  Nitrates 5ppm or less

phosphates .25 ppm or less

calcium 400

DKH- 13

 

 

 

P.S the jar is culturing copapods. If anyone has questions I would love to answer. I have had crazy success with this, my tank is now overloaded with copapods and I’m thinking about trading the scooter Benny for a GMG due to the high population. All I did was float the jar with some copapods and add about 20 ml of phyto plankton every 5 days for food. 

 

Update, woke up today to find his fourth leg on the sandbed next to him on the opposite side of the wavemaker. Im lost for ideas at this point,

[ReefWeeds]

He is most likely starving and on his way out. I think that’s a sand sifter from the photo. Mist likely there’s not enough food/critters for it to eat in your sand bed.!

[Oklahoma reef]

5 minutes ago, ReefWeeds said:

He is most likely starving and on his way out. I think that’s a sand sifter from the photo. Mist likely there’s not enough food/critters for it to eat in your sand bed.!

Do you have any suggestions for keeping the rose pink urchin? He was purchased 2 weeks after the star and I’d hate for him to starve out, he’s one of my favorite guys.

[wsonner]

Please stop.  If you don't even know what kind of sea star you have then there's no way that you knew how to care for it before you brought it home.  This is sad.  Your urchin won't be long in following and PLEASE don't get a "GMG."  They are one of the most difficult fish to keep alive, even for expert aquarists.  If you want to continue in this hobby without needlessly killing your pets, and wasting a lot of money, then please start researching. On-line resources are endless and most are free to use.  A great starting point is WetWebMedia.com.   Find a new home for that urchin or take it back to where you purchased it. It will most likely die within a week.  Sorry to sound like a jerk but I'd rather see you become successful and happy in this great hobby than to spare your feelings.

 

 

[Snow_Phoenix]

Erm, that's not a sand sifter starfish. That's a brown banded brittle starfish. I know it quite well, having owned two of them before. They're incredibly hardy and are one of those very few species which can survive in a nano, provided you feed it. That's right, it needs to be manually fed. I used to feed mine a piece of chopped shrimp or chopped squid using tweezers. Place it at the tip of one tentacle so that he can grab it, pass it along to its central disk and then consume it. They MUST be fed. I repeat, MUST. They're primarily scavengers, and will occasionally eat a sinking pellet or two, but this isn't enough. You starved him for 2 weeks, so he's disintegrating and dying. 

 

If you want to save him, you can QT him in a separate tank and slowly place a small bit of food - if he responds, he *might make a comeback and regrow the lost limbs, but honestly, once they're disintegrating like that, it's usually past saving.

EDIT: (Observe differences in thickness of stars' arms as well as general markings)

1. Banded brittle starfish:

 

2. Sandsifting Starfish: 

 

[kismetsh]

You are likely to run into trouble with the horseshoe crab as well. http://www.wetwebmedia.com/horseshoecrabfaqs.htm

 

[ReefWeeds]

@Snow_Phoenix is correct on the type of star. Sorry about that! I didn’t look at the photo closely. And correct on the giving it small bits of food. They eat meaty food. 

 

In regards to your pink urchin, if you don’t have enough algae for it to eat then it won’t last. What you can do is rubber band a nori sheet to a rock to feed the urchin.

 

My suggestion is don’t buy fish just to eat your pod population. You won’t be able to keep up with production. Pods are good for a tank and the population will adjust to the amount of food in the tank. 

 

In regards to some of the other comments, I agree with some of it. doing research before you get a critter or coral is super important. Know what you’re getting and what the care requirements are before you bring it home. If it says it is difficult because it is either sensitive to parameters or only eats a certain type of food, heed the warning. Live aquaria is a good site with care requirements for a bunch of different livestock. Even if you think you can buy or produce whatever food something needs, if it’s timeconsuming or difficult or expensive to do, this will get overwhelming fast. 

 

We have all made mistakes so don’t beat yourself up too much. What you do with the mistake and how you learn from it will determine your success rate in this hobby. It can be rewarding but it can be frustrating and difficult too! 

 

Good luck. 

[Oklahoma reef]

10 hours ago, wsonner said:

Please stop.  If you don't even know what kind of sea star you have then there's no way that you knew how to care for it before you brought it home.  This is sad.  Your urchin won't be long in following and PLEASE don't get a "GMG."  They are one of the most difficult fish to keep alive, even for expert aquarists.  If you want to continue in this hobby without needlessly killing your pets, and wasting a lot of money, then please start researching. On-line resources are endless and most are free to use.  A great starting point is WetWebMedia.com.   Find a new home for that urchin or take it back to where you purchased it. It will most likely die within a week.  Sorry to sound like a jerk but I'd rather see you become successful and happy in this great hobby than to spare your feelings.

 

 

 

After seeing a few different names assosiated with with similar starfish i didint want to take change and look like a goofball for calling it the wrong name. I would rather admit to not being 100% sure about somethig than to just start assuming species. Furthermore i have been in talks with my LFS about getting a starfish for over a month and this is the one he reccomended. Not to mention his instructions where that upon observing my tank i had enough detritus and other things to feed the starfish ( i guess he was wrong?). I dont think my urchin will be having any problems anytime soon, he gets lots of seaweed and crawls all over the spots that hasve algea in my tank.

9 hours ago, Snow_Phoenix said:

Erm, that's not a sand sifter starfish. That's a brown banded brittle starfish. I know it quite well, having owned two of them before. They're incredibly hardy and are one of those very few species which can survive in a nano, provided you feed it. That's right, it needs to be manually fed. I used to feed mine a piece of chopped shrimp or chopped squid using tweezers. Place it at the tip of one tentacle so that he can grab it, pass it along to its central disk and then consume it. They MUST be fed. I repeat, MUST. They're primarily scavengers, and will occasionally eat a sinking pellet or two, but this isn't enough. You starved him for 2 weeks, so he's disintegrating and dying. 

 

If you want to save him, you can QT him in a separate tank and slowly place a small bit of food - if he responds, he *might make a comeback and regrow the lost limbs, but honestly, once they're disintegrating like that, it's usually past saving.

EDIT: (Observe differences in thickness of stars' arms as well as general markings)

1. Banded brittle starfish:

 

2. Sandsifting Starfish: 

 

Thank you for the information. I am still pretty new to the hobby and i really appriciate the encouraging suggestions rather than the negative comments that might deter me from the hobby.

[FISHnChix]

17 minutes ago, Oklahoma reef said:

 

After seeing a few different names assosiated with with similar starfish i didint want to take change and look like a goofball for calling it the wrong name. I would rather admit to not being 100% sure about somethig than to just start assuming species. Furthermore i have been in talks with my LFS about getting a starfish for over a month and this is the one he reccomended. Not to mention his instructions where that upon observing my tank i had enough detritus and other things to feed the starfish ( i guess he was wrong?). I dont think my urchin will be having any problems anytime soon, he gets lots of seaweed and crawls all over the spots that hasve algea in my tank.

Thank you for the information. I am still pretty new to the hobby and i really appriciate the encouraging suggestions rather than the negative comments that might deter me from the hobby.

Just to say it before everyone else says it lfs isn't always a great source of information. Some will tell you anything just to make a buck and some can just be flat out wrong with no ill  intent.. that being said I love shopping local ,just do a quick Google search to back up what the lfs tells ya.. good luck happy reefing..

[Snow_Phoenix]

4 hours ago, Weikel said:

Just to say it before everyone else says it lfs isn't always a great source of information. Some will tell you anything just to make a buck and some can just be flat out wrong with no ill  intent.. that being said I love shopping local ,just do a quick Google search to back up what the lfs tells ya.. good luck happy reefing..

I agree with Weikel. LFS mostly don't give good advice. Sometimes they do, but those are rare and far between. The horseshoe crab needs to be returned though. I know it looks cool and interesting, but it's unsuitable for a 20G. As for the urchin, if you truly insist on keeping it, supplement it regularly with seaweed. Unless you have a nasty algae outbreak, then you might consider keeping the lil' guy. Otherwise, you can always return it back to the store once your algae issues are over. Urchins too, have a nasty tendency to starve and die in nanos, unfortunately. 

[Oklahoma reef]

On 4/23/2018 at 6:33 AM, wsonner said:

Please stop.  If you don't even know what kind of sea star you have then there's no way that you knew how to care for it before you brought it home.  This is sad.  Your urchin won't be long in following and PLEASE don't get a "GMG."  They are one of the most difficult fish to keep alive, even for expert aquarists.  If you want to continue in this hobby without needlessly killing your pets, and wasting a lot of money, then please start researching. On-line resources are endless and most are free to use.  A great starting point is WetWebMedia.com.   Find a new home for that urchin or take it back to where you purchased it. It will most likely die within a week.  Sorry to sound like a jerk but I'd rather see you become successful and happy in this great hobby than to spare your feelings.

 

 

 rose urchin is still alive and well 🙂 nothing elde in my tank has died besides a yellow clown goby that was already sick when i got him. tanks been running for over a year without a single algea or cyano outbreak. 

 

if you need help let me know 🙂

[ReefGoat]

Aren't you the person who just made another post about your hippo tang having ich? In your 25g gallon tank with 6 fish and two shrimp. Two of them being tangs............... So this means you also have another creature in there as well, the urchin? Not cool dude. Even if you are "planning an upgrade" like most who make bad stocking decisions say. It's still not cool. Not to mention........in the other thread you mentioned how you put the tang that you knew had ich in your display with all your other fish. ALL! Of your fish have ich now and it's in your tank. Your bad decisions have caused you to have a serious problem on your hands and coming back to this thread to boast..........................is unbecoming 

[ReefGoat]

The point of me saying this is that........I don't think anyone is going to want your help. Despite your tank not having algae.