Micro Brittle Star Mass Die Off

[PDR]

My rock used to be filled with micro brittle stars. Every night I could go in with a flashlight and see their arms just about everywhere. There must have been hundreds.

Several months ago I noticed that I didn’t see any. To this day I have not spotted a single brittle star in my tank.

I suspect it has something to do with rearranging my scape and cleaning the sandbed, because I believe that is what killed my urchin (lost his spines over several days then died).

Funny thing was that none of my fish or other inverts (snails, crabs, shrimp) were affected.

I never smelled any sulfur or anything else strange and my parameters never changed (that I measured). I also never saw a single star body anywhere in the rock, filter socks or sump.

What's your best guess?

 

[Gareth elliott]

Echinoderms are a bell weather for instability. Any quick change they can start to go down hill rather quickly. Salinity and temperature are the big ones but anything that causes their strange water vascular system to stop working leads to quick tissue death. They tend to decay to pieces of themselves that being micro to start you probably wouldnt see.

 

[DSC reef]

Chemisty and food source would be my guess.