Help..My Brittle star is falling apart.

[tykill]

I've only had him for two days(got him with a 30-90gal cleaner pack.), and today I found him curled up and and one of his legs has fallen off. And he is sheding bristles everywhere. The water conditions are all great. Has anyone had this problem before or have any suggestions. 75 gal tank, with 1 coral beauty, one bar goby, 1 1/2 lS 45# LR.
2 emperor filters and a cleaner back.

 

[fishymissy]

What are your water parameters, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, ph, alk, temperature, and salinity?

 

[tykill]

Water is Amonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 25ppm,
ph 8.4

 

[ebeckels]

how long did u acclimate him for?
-Eric

 

[tykill]

at least a hour

 

[fred the fish guy]

This usually accurs if you acclimate stars too quickly. They can get bubbles to develop in there bodies as well just like a diver would get the bends or could get a nitrogen bubble if they come up too fast. It is because their body cant handle the changing conditions. When acclimating stars it should be spread over a longer period of time than fish so they can have time to adjust. This could be the case but I am not sure. Maybe you simply acclimated it to quickly and it didnt have enough time to adjust. Maybe someone else can help you out more but I belive the legs are acctually poped off by the trapped bubble.

 

[fred the fish guy]

If you acclimated it for an hour I would have to say that is it again. I usually acclimate any star for at least 4 hours. Usually brittle stars arent that hard to acclimate and I know people that just throw them in and they do fine Maybe you just got unlucky. Next time acclimate it longer and I am sure you will have better success.

 

[tykill]

thanks for the information Fred..this is very helpfull to me and anyone else who plans on buying a invert package. Like I said....I have two..one is still doing ok. must have been the acclumation. Does this mean he is going to die..or will he just lose the arms and regenerate?

 

[tykill]

No..I take that back..the other one has lost a arm also.....hummm, not a good day to be a starfish in my tank.
Just for curiosity, I also got a free mushroom coral with my package....how do I care for this thing. Do I glue it to a rock? What does it eat?

 

[wamp]

The good news maybe that stars have a great habbit of grownig back their legs. I wish I had a pic of the one I had when I changed my 180 out.. You should have seen it.. The body had holes in it and all ,i mean all, the legs were gone just little stubs left. I swear he only had about 10% of his body left and 2 months later he looked like a new starfish.. as far as acclimating an hour should be plenty if you add your water slowly. The air thing I dont know about but my stars legs fell of due to poor handling. and water tooooo cold

 

[cyn]

One of my mushrooms got knocked off of the rock during some maintaince, and I just set it back on a rock. It took hold and is growing nicely now.

 

[tykill]

Anybody Else ever have a stubby star fish????....I went to get a crab off of my mushroom coral today, seems that it has already took hold of the rock? still would like to know what to feed it if I even have too?

 

[fishymissy]

You never said what your salinity was, but if it's too low they will lose their legs from that too. BTW, some crabs will snap the legs off of brittlestars and eat them. It happened in my 29g tank when it was first set up (and I thought that crab was kinda cute).

 

[tykill]

Salinity is at .0021, the temp is was 80..I've got it lowered to 77 now. I do have a sally light foot, but I pretty much saw the brittle loose one arm, just fell right off, so I don't think it was him.

 

[fishfreek]

Tykill, do you know what type of mushroom you have? Can you discribe it? Some mushrooms only need light and some need to be directly fed. I feed my brown harry shrooms a little brine shrimp. You can use an eye dropper and direct feed it. You'll know its eating when it wrapps itself around the food.

 

[tykill]

I believe it is a umbrella mushroom. about 1 inch in diameter, greenish brown with a orangeish colored middle about the size of a eraser.( I assume this is the mouth.) right now all I'm feeding the fish is frozen mysis shrimp, frozen blood worms or some flake food.

 

[fishymissy]

Why did you lower the temperature? It was fine at 80! Also, your salinity is indeed low, try raising it slowly to 1.024 brittlestars and starfish do much better within the normal range, rather than the artificial lower range most people keep their tanks at.

 

[big tuna]

make sure you feed your brittle stars too. I lost a goby too one and did some research and found that they like krill and silversides. I feeding once a week

 

[tykill]

Thank you everybody for your help. Too fill you in on the star situation, He has now officaly lost all five arms and is still moving about. I will try to get a pic out soon. The crabs have never been happier, forgive me for the pun, but they have seemed to have eating at a 5 star restraunt, and have cleaned their plates.