HELP My Green Brittlestars Insides Exposed

mytwoboys

mytwoboys

Member
Attached is a pic, my star had a little white patch yesterday, then at night it looked like a rip with a little salmon colored spot sticking out, then this morning the patch is huge and his insides are exposed. The salinity is normal as it has been for the last 4 or 5 mo.s, everyone else is fine, so I dont understand. How can I fix him? Does he need to be quarantined? Please help quick!
 
T

thomas712

Guest
Ophiura is the one you want to talk to but I have two guesses at this point, perhaps you can give us some info befor Ohpi shows up.
My guess would be
1. Preditor attack, is there anything in the tank that might have attacked it?
2. Distended disk syndrome, this is where it simply eats way to much or something that might have been sharp that extended its belly and caused a hole from the inside out.
If preditor then do you have a refugium that you might be able to house him in to keep him away from preditors while he heals?
If distended disk syndrome, then its possible to survive, but Ophiura might know more about that than I do.
Perhpas you can list other inhabitants of the tank and some details about it before she logs on and finds this post.
Good luck
Thomas
 
mytwoboys

mytwoboys

Member
Hi,
My perimeters are: Ph 8.0 , ammonia .25 , nitrite 0, nitrate is really high, like the highest it shows on the chart. 1) Don't know about predator attack, had him for at least 5 months w/ current fish, no one ever bothers him, 2) definitely not distended disk syndrome as I watch him eat every time I feed him and never give him too much. Apparently my nitrates could be the huge problem! Also, when I inherited him from the people I bought the tank from they told me they kept the salinity at 1.026 so I have always kept it there and no one seems adversely affected. Is that too high, they said when it was lower he was turning brown. He now has an eaten away part on 2 of his legs in the middle that weren't there yesterday. I have since used AmQuel + and "cycle" tonight and did a 10g water change, tested and retested and nothing has changed. Now I really don't know what else to do. :help:
 
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