what happened to starfish????

[bprewit]

I have a fancy serpent star that has been in my tank for over a year. He was happy and healthy until a few days ago when he suddenly exploded! Actually his main body disappeared and all that are left are his 5 legs that are still alive and each crawling around. Very strange, kinda sad, and wondering exactly what the heck happened?

[DeletedAccount]

Alien popped out of his middle????

[alexwolf]

LOL Spaceballs? Im sorry, your loss is not funny :(

[ratboy]

Check your salinity. Low SG causes ecinoderms to fall apart....

[bprewit]

aliens? Spaceballs? Man never thought about it but suppose it is possible! Salinity is 1.026 and all other inverts including snails are healthy and happy. I wonder if the legs will grow into new starfish? I dont want more of them one was plenty!

[Nano_Steve]

lol, unfortunately bprewit, i dont think youll have a starfish infestation on your hands from this. starfish arent able to grow themselves anew from a cutting like some species of worm can, they do grow arms like there's no tomorrow though!

it might have just been its time to go. ive found myself questioning why something passed on when all my parameters checked out a-ok before, it takes awhile to come to the conclusion that our stuff dies after it gets to a certain age(keep neon gobies for awhile, youll notice that quickly)

i do have one question that may help, did you take it out of the water at all or have a large volume of bubbles suddenly spill into the tank water before it died? many species of stars "melt" quickly after being in contact with air(or human skin oils for that matter)

hth, steve

[cvonseggern]

lol, unfortunately bprewit, i dont think youll have a starfish infestation on your hands from this. starfish arent able to grow themselves anew from a cutting like some species of worm can, they do grow arms like there's no tomorrow though!


Some can, actually. IIRC crown-of-thorns stars will grow themselves back from just a fragment of a leg. Of course, I could be smoking crack again...

[Nano_Steve]

Of course, I could be smoking crack again...

LMAO, dont say that! we got a finger shook at us for that kind of talk in the for sale section :P

but seriously, i didnt know that about those!!! how cool is that?!?! i dont know for a fact but i dont think there are any stars that are seen on the market for aquariums that are able to do this.

i think those feather stars are so gorgeous, its a shame they do so poorly in aquariums, i think itd be really neat to see a species specific tank for these things.

-steve

[cvonseggern]

Crown-of-thorns are the same animal otherwise known as red general stars...some places do sell them for the aquarium trade. I've read they're venomous, though, on top of being voracious corallivores...that's a big "no thanks" from me. I'd rather have my softies and LPS than one big nasty starfish.

[Bigreefer]

Some articles on this subject.
http://www.vsf.cape.com/~jdale/science/regeneration.htm
http://www.susanscott.net/OceanWatch2001/may25-01.html
http://www.howe.k12.ok.us/~jimaskew/bstarfsh.htm
http://www.starfish.ch/reef/echinoderms.html

[bprewit]

The only strange thing is that it has been exactly one week since I noticed he had fallen apart and this morning I can still see 3 of the legs crawling around. They are still alive somehow and pretty strange to see them moving around the tank. I figured the crabs would have already eaten them but since they are still alive everything leaves them alone.

[GaryP]

The small white stars that are common in many of our tanks reproduce by dropping legs.

Gary

[bprewit]

Ok it has been over two weeks since the star turned into 5 lonely looking little legs and all 5 of them are still alive and moving around the tank. They dont seem to be growing anything like they are regenerating but hell they are still alive! Pretty strange as I know they cant be feeding....

[Nano_Steve]

**shivers** thats just kreepy then! it reminds me of this nightmare i had with zombies in it. all fear the zombie star!!!

but seriously you've gone past anything ive ever experienced. take a video capture of that and put it on reefcentral, see what the experts have to say about it.

-steve

[MikeDeL]

That is kinda night of the living dead like isnt it.