Red Brittel starfish

Question
QUESTION:   I have had my red brittle starfish for about a couple of months now, including a sapphire damsel, a bleeny, 2 blue legged crabs, an several soft corals in my tank they have all been living peacefully ever since I have added him.
  When I went to turn the light off today everything was normal looking like any other day, but when I went to turn it back on I had noticed my starfish look as if it had been picked at. It had one leg completely missing and the other four were half gone.There was only a quarter of a leg in the tank remaining that i could find and I decided to isolated him and realized that alot of his tentacles were missing or severely damaged.


ANSWER: hello adri,

sounds like you have something in your tank that like the taste of britle stars...

do you hear 'clicking' noises sometimes?? if so, you might want to look up MANTIS SHRIMP..

other then that, you will have to get rid of the starfish before he becomes the main meal...

sorry,


and good luck


please keep me posted...

Bill

---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: thanks for replying so fast as for the possibilty of a mantis shrimp i believe that is out of the question. i have not heard clicking at all an have had my tank for about 5mnths. i am aware of them as for my friend had a problem with one before. the only unknown things in my tank are bristle worms, and this wierd clear/white tenticale thing that lives in a shell (almost like a jellyfish stinger that stretches thin)
 i have already isolated him and am courious as to if he could make a recovery. also as to why i am just now havin a problem like this all of a sudden.

maybe u could help my with another problem i am having i also have a 50gal tank an had recently discovered that i had many baby white lice like size organisims living on the glass. to my surprise it was ich. i only have a sand shifter star an some richordias in the tank but i was wondering if u have any advise to get rid of this nasty parisite. i've been adding ich away which is safe for coral, marine and reef tanks but they seem to multiply at a extreame rate.

Answer
yea, sorry about the brittle star, but be careful there are other types of mantis that dont click.. theyare 'clubber' type...

as for the ich, i doubt that it is ich without fish...  it could be pods, (copepods), and or baby isopods...

they are REALLY SMALL... maybe with a magnifying glass you can see that they are 'shrimp' like???

if you are sure that you have ich, you can treat the tank prior to putting in corals and other inverts, and other critters...

there are plenty of products out there, and are relatively cheap, just not for coral tanks...

good luck


if you want, you can join my new forum at www.thelittleocean.com

introduce yourself and ask as much as you want.. there are other smart guys and guals there and some newbies and everything in between...

good luck and hope to hear from you soon


bill