Any idea what’s wrong with my star fish?

[ekandler]

Had him for years and he’s started losing limbs recently and died today. Been having issue with my coral lately and i don’t know if it could be related to what’s happening to my starfish.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Well, listing your parameters would be a good place to start, particularly if your corals are struggling too. That said, when you say you've had it for years, how many years do you mean?

 

[Pkunk35]

So I noticed my red starfish looking a little slim and moving all over my tank and I realized he was starving. Perhaps this is happening to yours especially a sand sifter; do you feed it?

 

[ekandler]

Well, listing your parameters would be a good place to start, particularly if your corals are struggling too. That said, when you say you've had it for years, how many years do you mean?

I’ve had it for maybe 2-3 years. Don’t remember exactly. Had a tank move about 2 years ago but pretty sure I moved him from the old tank. Parameters are 8.4 dKh, 455 calc, 1320 mag, 0 nitrate (working on that) and 0.1 phosphate. Other parameters are in the ICP test from this week.

Ive never fed him before, so I’m honestly not sure if he’s starving or not but maybe my sand has gotten too clean?…

 

[Pkunk35]

With 0 nitrate I’d prob guess yes.

this thing has either wasted away or was attacked imo so probably starving. Maybe tuck some mysid or pellet into the sand bed for it or something I’m not sure what they eat

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Yeah, if it's within 2-3 years, then odds are that it starved - sand sifting stars are known for doing that, unfortunately. As I understand it, most starfish can take months to starve to death, and the loss of limbs seems to be the first sign people notice.

Pkunk35's idea is good with the supplemental/target feeding. Here's the advice I usually give for keeping/feeding sand sifting stars:

With sand sifting stars, most people recommend waiting until your tank is established before adding them - however, you might be able to target feed it with things like clam on half shell, oyster, snail or conch meat (a lot of places offer these frozen), a good quality omnivore food (like LRS Reef Frenzy) etc. It should swallow any of these foods whole, as long as the food isn’t too big for the star. They generally feed on detritus in our tanks, but target feeding might provide enough of the proper nutrition for them, and these are supposed to be some of the kinds of food they eat in the wild anyway. Plus, they are known for eating all of the detritus in our tanks and starving to death, so target feeding them larger food pieces relatively regularly might actually help it do better long term. No guarantees though.

If you decide to get it and try target feeding it, let us know how it turns out.

Mussel and whelk could potentially be fed as well, but with the mussel I've heard that clams may be more nutritious.

 

[Pkunk35]

Are all stars omnivores? I have a red soft bodied starfish, it seems to like things on the rock but I can’t ever identify what it is eating…

 

[vtecintegra]

These things probably shouldn't be kept. They need a sand bed full of organisms to feed on, which a home aquarium doesn't have, or the square feet to support them. Most are carnivores, but people keep pushing them as detritus eaters, which has little nutrient value.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Are all stars omnivores? I have a red soft bodied starfish, it seems to like things on the rock but I can’t ever identify what it is eating…

To my knowledge, they’re all either omnivores or carnivores when fully grown, but at least some are herbivores (phyto eaters) when young.

The carnivorous ones (such as the chocolate chip starfish) generally eat corals, clams, and other slow or immobile creatures, and the omnivores typically eat detritus and biofilms (basically clumps of small planktons, bacterias, etc.). Most likely, that’s what your starfish is after on your rocks (though it’ll probably happily take any pods or fish food scraps it comes across along the way) - microorganisms. That’s why people say not to add starfish to a small tank or one that’s not established - there’s just not enough of the biofilm forming microorganisms to keep the starfish fed long term, and supplemental feedings don’t seem to cut it for most of the omnivore stars, so they usually starve in our tanks (even in massive, well-established tanks, the stars usually starve eventually - our tanks are generally just too clean to support them)..

That said, I suggested using an omnivore food because it’s primarily meat (which is the natural diet of the sand sifting star), but having a little algae with it more closely replicates the conditions the food would be in for the stars in the wild (i.e. they eat the snail that has a stomach full of algae, so they’d be ingesting/receiving nutrients from some algae in the wild naturally even if they don’t intentionally eat any).