My Starfish has broken up into pieces..........why?
- Thread starter brad
- Start date
brad
New Member
nitrite - 0, ammonia - 0, nitrate - almost undetectable, phosphate - nearly 0, calcium - a bit low at 380, (a.m. ph - 8.0), (p.m. ph - 8.8), alkalinity - 5.0 - 6.0.
40 gallan tank with at lest 50lbs. of live rock and a 5 gallon refugium, protein skimmer and basic cartridge filter built into refugium. As a secondary part of the refugium I am utilizing an algae seed screen from Inland Aquatics to help reduce nitrates and other nasties. I added this algae seed screen about 3 weeks ago and prior to using it my nitrates where around 10 ppm. I am convinced that this has helped.
The problem in question did happen the same day I added 3 mithrax crabs, 3 red crabs, a sebae anomonea and a flame angel. All new inhabitants are doing great. My amphipods are growing in numbers in the tank as well as in the refugium.
I hope this helps to narrow down the problem.
Thanks,
Brad
40 gallan tank with at lest 50lbs. of live rock and a 5 gallon refugium, protein skimmer and basic cartridge filter built into refugium. As a secondary part of the refugium I am utilizing an algae seed screen from Inland Aquatics to help reduce nitrates and other nasties. I added this algae seed screen about 3 weeks ago and prior to using it my nitrates where around 10 ppm. I am convinced that this has helped.
The problem in question did happen the same day I added 3 mithrax crabs, 3 red crabs, a sebae anomonea and a flame angel. All new inhabitants are doing great. My amphipods are growing in numbers in the tank as well as in the refugium.
I hope this helps to narrow down the problem.
Thanks,
Brad
peter
New Member
Brad, I had the same thing happen to my serpant star.To this day I still cant figure out what had caused his misfortune.He was very active at night,would come out and scavenge off the bottom and hide in the rocks during the day, seemed very happy.The only thing I could figure out was nitrate was too high.If you have inverts its essential to keep nitrate levels to a min.Let me know if you figure it out.Thanks
peter
New Member
Brad,right before the serpant star started to fall apart (it was pretty grussem to watch)I introduced an anemone about a week or two before it died.The only thing different that I did when I got the anemone was that I left the light on about 10 hours a day,just a thought,but maybe all that light stressed the little guy out.
peter
New Member
Caustic? Thats a new one to me,I always keep notes on anything that happens in my aquarium,and looking back,I did do a water change 2 days prior too when I noticed my serpant star was literaly falling apart and died.Let me know Brad could it be this caustic thing? What is caustic anyways?
brad
New Member
I was using Kalkwasser (which is new to me) for my make up water but it had been a week or more since I had added any. I do know that the film on top of the kalkwasser water (which I strain off) is caustic but I am not totally sure what that means. Also, from what I understand, when using kalkwasser for your make up water you want to add it very slowly because it will sky rocket your PH. ???? I need to learn how to use Kalkwasser a little better as I have been haveing probs.
eric
Member
caustic means chemicaly hot like acid if you let fertilizer set on you yard with out watering it in it chemicaly burns the grass same thing. With kawaser not only the scum on the top is caustic but also the sedament on the bottom try syphoning from the middle of the contianer works good. Now the salt thats news to me but it makes sense if you pour salt on meat and let it set awile it will chemicaly cook the meat. And just last nite my salanity was a little low so I mixed a gal. jug and dumped it in I'll never do that again
harris
Member
salt is caustic. Absolutely.
The meat analogy is not the best it does not actually cook the meat. Salt is very "caustic" to metals. Remember rust on your old toyota pickup. Caustic is actually a term that means it will have a chemical reaction fairly easy. Chemically hot I liked that term. As far as the meat, it keeps the meat for a while longer because of the high salinity content. This high salt content inhibits small microorganisms from growing. Reason is the salt pulls the water out of their bodies. Remember when you are a single celled organism that will kill you (freshwater dip- it works the other way-no slat so they actually swell and explode). A good example is the slug and salt trick. It is higher up on the order but still the same.
So why doesn't the salt kill our fish? Evolution, but in reality it will, saline too high or too low then they will stress and can eventully die. If the starfish is extremely intolerant to salt ppm flucuations then yes that could be a part of it.
I was a microbiology major at college for a while.
Later.
The meat analogy is not the best it does not actually cook the meat. Salt is very "caustic" to metals. Remember rust on your old toyota pickup. Caustic is actually a term that means it will have a chemical reaction fairly easy. Chemically hot I liked that term. As far as the meat, it keeps the meat for a while longer because of the high salinity content. This high salt content inhibits small microorganisms from growing. Reason is the salt pulls the water out of their bodies. Remember when you are a single celled organism that will kill you (freshwater dip- it works the other way-no slat so they actually swell and explode). A good example is the slug and salt trick. It is higher up on the order but still the same.
So why doesn't the salt kill our fish? Evolution, but in reality it will, saline too high or too low then they will stress and can eventully die. If the starfish is extremely intolerant to salt ppm flucuations then yes that could be a part of it.
I was a microbiology major at college for a while.
Later.
harris
Member
sometimes we just cannot explain things, but I will give this one a try.
I have 2 ideas.
1. The starfish runs on a watervascular system. If we understand the freshwater dip idea then you do not have to keep reading, you just figured out what I am thinking, but if you do not, read on. Like I said earlier salt loves water. Wherever there is salt water will go. So back to your poor guy. Adding saltwater that is not close to your current tank setup can cause water to exit one environment and enter another. Now this is not a problem for fish because they do not use this watervascular system. But the starfish due-they basically rely on the salt content to be consistent in their environment. If it isn;t water may leave their vascular system quicky or enter it quickly- depending on where the salt content is the highest. If this process is fast enough, it will actually swell with the added water and burst-not like a zit but it's veins and arteries will. This will cause irrepairable damage to the starfishes internals. Which it may sense and then "run" around the tank to help aid it in equalizing the salt content with it's environment. Remember a starfish has no special way of excreting things like we do, it just kind of deals with it. And a large shock will not allow it to deal.
2. Invertabrae means lacking a vertabrae. We can see this as an internal skeleton, humans and fish as well as all mammals have internal skeletons. That is bones that are inside of our bodies or surrounded by another organ. Invertebra's have there skeletons on the outside of their bodies. Even if the organism feels somewhat mushy it is still it's skeleton. Think of a lobster-hard to crack on the outside but very soft on the inside. All of it's muscles are connected to the exoskeleton on the inside. This makes it pretty hard for exoskelton creatures to be able to pass water through them(absorbtion). Mammals can absorb and perspire willingly, because we have a semi-pourous layer-skin. But if you had hard plates that were not pourous then the water held within would become stagnant. Maybe it got a huge dose of salt and could not equalize fast enough. Hence the "running around the tank" It was actually trying to get some less saline water in to create a tolerable equilibrium. Starfish themselves do not have specialized excretory organs. So they have to find another way to get out what they see as toxic.
Both of these are good ideas and may have both contributed to your starfishes demise.
Since it was 2 days until death I say his watervascular system had been blown apart- and now all of the micro bacterias and things were doing their job on him.
As for fish they will die to but-it will take a much longer time due to the fact that they can shed water or salt as needed through their own excretory system. They do this by "breathing watch them when you put them in straight water next time, they are actually reeasing salt as they pass water over their gills, too long in the pure water, and they will die though due to all of the salt loss.
I wonder about the anenomoe though, maybe it releases something in the water that the starfish cannot handle?????
Hope this helps.
Later.
I have 2 ideas.
1. The starfish runs on a watervascular system. If we understand the freshwater dip idea then you do not have to keep reading, you just figured out what I am thinking, but if you do not, read on. Like I said earlier salt loves water. Wherever there is salt water will go. So back to your poor guy. Adding saltwater that is not close to your current tank setup can cause water to exit one environment and enter another. Now this is not a problem for fish because they do not use this watervascular system. But the starfish due-they basically rely on the salt content to be consistent in their environment. If it isn;t water may leave their vascular system quicky or enter it quickly- depending on where the salt content is the highest. If this process is fast enough, it will actually swell with the added water and burst-not like a zit but it's veins and arteries will. This will cause irrepairable damage to the starfishes internals. Which it may sense and then "run" around the tank to help aid it in equalizing the salt content with it's environment. Remember a starfish has no special way of excreting things like we do, it just kind of deals with it. And a large shock will not allow it to deal.
2. Invertabrae means lacking a vertabrae. We can see this as an internal skeleton, humans and fish as well as all mammals have internal skeletons. That is bones that are inside of our bodies or surrounded by another organ. Invertebra's have there skeletons on the outside of their bodies. Even if the organism feels somewhat mushy it is still it's skeleton. Think of a lobster-hard to crack on the outside but very soft on the inside. All of it's muscles are connected to the exoskeleton on the inside. This makes it pretty hard for exoskelton creatures to be able to pass water through them(absorbtion). Mammals can absorb and perspire willingly, because we have a semi-pourous layer-skin. But if you had hard plates that were not pourous then the water held within would become stagnant. Maybe it got a huge dose of salt and could not equalize fast enough. Hence the "running around the tank" It was actually trying to get some less saline water in to create a tolerable equilibrium. Starfish themselves do not have specialized excretory organs. So they have to find another way to get out what they see as toxic.
Both of these are good ideas and may have both contributed to your starfishes demise.
Since it was 2 days until death I say his watervascular system had been blown apart- and now all of the micro bacterias and things were doing their job on him.
As for fish they will die to but-it will take a much longer time due to the fact that they can shed water or salt as needed through their own excretory system. They do this by "breathing watch them when you put them in straight water next time, they are actually reeasing salt as they pass water over their gills, too long in the pure water, and they will die though due to all of the salt loss.
I wonder about the anenomoe though, maybe it releases something in the water that the starfish cannot handle?????
Hope this helps.
Later.