Sand sifting starfish damaged arms

Sparky312

Sparky312

Member
I got a sand sifting starfish a few days ago and a couple arms are more damaged/missing than when I put him in the tank. I know they can grow back so I'm not super concerned. Has anyone else seen this?

I drip acclimated him for 1.5 hours because I know they are sensitive. My water quality is good. I don't have anything that would eat them like puffers.

Any ideas? Just stress maybe?

Here is a picture so you can see what I mean
View attachment 9970
 
K

kdog23

Member
Hermits ? Rabbit fish ? What else do you have ? I has the same thing happen and I believe it was the Rabbit....I finally just got rid of both.
 
Sparky312

Sparky312

Member
No Rabbit fish.. Yes i have some hermits - its a little hard to imagine them eating that much of the arms, they are all small ones that don't bother anything else... thanks though. I'll keep an eye out
 
Sparky312

Sparky312

Member
Hmm looking around the 'net a little more seems like it is probably dying due to poor acclimation somewhere between this tank and the ocean... no way can it starve in the 4 days its been in there
 
K

kdog23

Member
See what the LFS you get him from says---maybe the do the honorable thing (lol) and let you try another on the house.
 
M

mtrcyclefish

New member
Maybe it was starving when you got it and now you're seeing the effects? From what I've read about these guys they can be difficult to keep well fed in an aquarium due to a lack of square footage of sand. I have no idea if there's a way to supplement their feeding.
 
Sparky312

Sparky312

Member
Ok guys sorry for the gruesome image but I wanted to provide some closure to the thread for anyone interested. Woke up this morning 6:30am to this:
View attachment 9998
So that's less than 12 hours after the previous photo. I just removed him from the tank.

In hindsight, it was a bad buy on my part, because the thing had some ragged looking arms when I got him from the store -- I thought starfish could regenerate their arms and just figured with good care they would grow back. Oops.

So basically a new person learned a valuable lesson about purchasing healthy creatures only.

Thanks to everybody for your input!
 
cet98

cet98

Active member
it's a shame the LFS sold it to you if the arms were visibly falling apart...I would think their trained eyes would pick up on that....

sorry for your loss :(
 
madjoe

madjoe

Premium member
That sucks ive had mine for yrs prob around five now still kicking i love stars its a shame lots of the cool ones aint reef same :(
 
C

cole_schoolman

New member
kdog23 said:
Ask for a credit----wouldn't hurt. Nassurius snail's time ! Cheaper and last forever.
Click to expand...
I have 4 Nassurius snails in my tank, when I first got them they were always out on the glass and came out at feeding time, and then they just stopped. I had kind of thought they died. But I moved back in December and during the move they all popped back out to say hello. They no longer come out of the sand, except for the one I occasionally find when im doing something to the sand.
 
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