Starfish dying?

[teethdoctor23]

I recently got an Australian biscuit starfish, per my wife’s request. I know they’re hard to keep but she insisted. It’s been moving all over the tank, eating algae on the glass and rocks. Today it looks like this, with brown stringyness hanging from its mouth. Is this his gonads and some type of asexual reproduction? Is he dying? Just need some opinions here.

acclimation was very slow, about 2 weeks ago, and made sure to never expose the starfish to air. Parameters all look good, nothing is standing out to me. Please help!

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Is the mouth discolored brown, or that just a trick of my eyes/the photo?

 

[vetteguy53081]

I recently got an Australian biscuit starfish, per my wife’s request. I know they’re hard to keep but she insisted. It’s been moving all over the tank, eating algae on the glass and rocks. Today it looks like this, with brown stringyness hanging from its mouth. Is this his gonads and some type of asexual reproduction? Is he dying? Just need some opinions here.

acclimation was very slow, about 2 weeks ago, and made sure to never expose the starfish to air. Parameters all look good, nothing is standing out to me. Please help!

This is one of the more difficult stars to deal with and not forgiving with changes . Looks like it is very stressed.
Check nitrates and phos to assure not elevated as well as salinity

 

[teethdoctor23]

Is the mouth discolored brown, or that just a trick of my eyes/the photo?

It appears brown, yes.

 

[teethdoctor23]

This is one of the more difficult stars to deal with and not forgiving with changes . Looks like it is very stressed.
Check nitrates and phos to assure not elevated as well as salinity

Nitrates: 6.4
Phos: .07

checked today

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

It appears brown, yes.

Well that’s probably not a great sign.

To add to Vetteguy’s response, though, this is definitely not reproduction (for sexual reproduction, most starfish pop up onto their “tiptoes” and release the eggs/sperm; for asexual reproduction, they are fissiparous, meaning that they literally split into pieces - typically by dropping a leg or by basically splitting in half - and the split pieces regrow into full stars).

I’m not entirely sure what this issue is, but I’ve heard of one Linckia star that may have had this problem (the link is super old and the photo no longer shows) and recovered from it over a couple of weeks (which is actually not a bad survival rate, based on the low number of cases I’ve seen with this issue).

I’ve seen people speculate that this is just the star everting it’s stomach to eat - it is almost certainly not. There are enough photos and videos of starfish eating with their everted stomachs these days to pretty well rule that out. I’ve seen one person claim this is the star spitting out damaged tube feet and that they do this often in the wild - I can find exactly zero evidence to support that claim, and I find it rather dubious (if anyone has evidence of this, I would be very curious to see it).

My unprofessional guess is that this is some sort of intense stress response or a bacterial infection of some kind (probably resulting from stress and/or less than ideal food/water conditions). Interestingly, most of the cases that I’ve seen that I can recall this with have happened similarly to your own (meaning this issue started about 2-3 weeks after they purchased the stars and added them to their tanks).

It’s possible it’s something with your tank parameters/conditions (such as high organic nutrients that, to my understanding, don’t read on most hobbyist tests), or something happened during the acclimation process, or even that the star was having unseen issues before you got it/the issues may have been caused by issues that occurred before you got it. I’m not sure.

From what I’ve seen, normally when stars die in aquaria they start dropping limbs and disintegrating (it kind of looks like they’re turning to ash). This looks different to me.

I’d say follow the fish disease forum guidelines and post your tank info and water parameters and see if the collective here can find anything off, but starfish sickness is not a very well understood field just yet.

 

[teethdoctor23]

Well that’s probably not a great sign.

To add to Vetteguy’s response, though, this is definitely not reproduction (for sexual reproduction, most starfish pop up onto their “tiptoes” and release the eggs/sperm; for asexual reproduction, they are fissiparous, meaning that they literally split into pieces - typically by dropping a leg or by basically splitting in half - and the split pieces regrow into full stars).

I’m not entirely sure what this issue is, but I’ve heard of one Linckia star that may have had this problem (the link is super old and the photo no longer shows) and recovered from it over a couple of weeks (which is actually not a bad survival rate, based on the low number of cases I’ve seen with this issue).

I’ve seen people speculate that this is just the star everting it’s stomach to eat - it is almost certainly not. There are enough photos and videos of starfish eating with their everted stomachs these days to pretty well rule that out. I’ve seen one person claim this is the star spitting out damaged tube feet and that they do this often in the wild - I can find exactly zero evidence to support that claim, and I find it rather dubious (if anyone has evidence of this, I would be very curious to see it).

My unprofessional guess is that this is some sort of intense stress response or a bacterial infection of some kind (probably resulting from stress and/or less than ideal food/water conditions). Interestingly, most of the cases that I’ve seen that I can recall this with have happened similarly to your own (meaning this issue started about 2-3 weeks after they purchased the stars and added them to their tanks).

It’s possible it’s something with your tank parameters/conditions (such as high organic nutrients that, to my understanding, don’t read on most hobbyist tests), or something happened during the acclimation process, or even that the star was having unseen issues before you got it/the issues may have been caused by issues that occurred before you got it. I’m not sure.

From what I’ve seen, normally when stars die in aquaria they start dropping limbs and disintegrating (it kind of looks like they’re turning to ash). This looks different to me.

I’d say follow the fish disease forum guidelines and post your tank info and water parameters and see if the collective here can find anything off, but starfish sickness is not a very well understood field just yet.

Water parameters:
Salinity:1.025
Nitrates:6.4
Phosphates: .07
Calcium: 427
Mag: 1
Alk: 9.3
pH: 8.3
Temp: 77.6-78.5

see anything weird?

 

[Steve and his Animals]

Looks like (to me at least) the star had some type of infection in it's body cavity and is now rotting from the inside. Just a theory. I'm basing it off of how anemones often get cavity infections from re-ingesting water they had previously ejected into the bag during transport: maybe something similar happened to this sea star. Maybe it's regurgitating some of that rotting material in an attempt to purge the infection.

Then again, sea stars and other echinoderms have separate openings for taking in and ejecting seawater (as far as I'm aware) than just a single "mouth" like an anemone, so maybe the mechanism is different. I've never known anybody to medicate sea stars, though, so who knows if this is fixable based off what I'm guessing.

 

[vetteguy53081]

This star is an omnivore and needs both meat and algaes. Preferred salinity is 1.024 even 1.023 and Mag is 1 ??
Again being affected by changes in water quality, it is doing this due to stress.

 

[teethdoctor23]

This star is an omnivore and needs both meat and algaes. Preferred salinity is 1.024 even 1.023 and Mag is 1 ??
Again being affected by changes in water quality, it is doing this due to stress.

Sorry Mag is 1550. Typo. I can’t imagine 1.025 is hurting the starfish but who knows. No big swings, all of my corals are doing great. Perhaps the starfish is more sensitive than my SPS and LPS.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Sorry Mag is 1550. Typo. I can’t imagine 1.025 is hurting the starfish but who knows. No big swings, all of my corals are doing great. Perhaps the starfish is more sensitive than my SPS and LPS.

typical mag range is 1300-1350. Yours is elevated and yes, they are more sensitive than SPS. Red and Blue Linkia also very challenging star

 

[teethdoctor23]

typical mag range is 1300-1350. Yours is elevated and yes, they are more sensitive than SPS. Red and Blue Linkia also very challenging star

That being said, should I lower my salinity and Mag?

 

[vetteguy53081]

That being said, should I lower my salinity and Mag?

Salinity, 1.024 and Mag will have to be done gradually keeping in mind they do not like changes in water quality

 

[Steve and his Animals]

That being said, should I lower my salinity and Mag?

Salinity is fine, swings in Mag are going to be more deadly than stable numbers. Although, 1500 is quite high. It's hard to say without knowing the Mag of the water the sea star came from.

 

[teethdoctor23]

Salinity is fine, swings in Mag are going to be more deadly than stable numbers. Although, 1500 is quite high. It's hard to say without knowing the Mag of the water the sea star came from.

Salinity, 1.024 and Mag will have to be done gradually keeping in mind they do not like changes in water quality

In all honesty, everything I’ve read about elevated mag, it shouldn’t be a problem. Plenty of reefers have had higher magnesium than me and have had great success with their reefs, so I won’t be chasing numbers, as that never has good outcomes, especially for an element such as magnesium as swings are far more detrimental, as you mentioned. Thread is a bit off topic here now, however I appreciate the input. Thank you both.

 

[Steve and his Animals]

In all honesty, everything I’ve read about elevated mag, it shouldn’t be a problem. Plenty of reefers have had higher magnesium than me and have had great success with their reefs, so I won’t be chasing numbers, as that never has good outcomes, especially for an element such as magnesium as swings are far more detrimental, as you mentioned. Thread is a bit off topic here now, however I appreciate the input. Thank you both.

I say swings are bad not because I think you should change your mag, but because if the sea star came from a tank with lower mag, dropping him into mag that's much higher might be contributing to the problem. Not that you can do much about it now, but just food for thought.

 

[vetteguy53081]

In all honesty, everything I’ve read about elevated mag, it shouldn’t be a problem. Plenty of reefers have had higher magnesium than me and have had great success with their reefs, so I won’t be chasing numbers, as that never has good outcomes, especially for an element such as magnesium as swings are far more detrimental, as you mentioned. Thread is a bit off topic here now, however I appreciate the input. Thank you both.

The mag is not deadly range- just elevated as mentioned. Ive had Mag at 1420 without adverse effects

 

[teethdoctor23]

I say swings are bad not because I think you should change your mag, but because if the sea star came from a tank with lower mag, dropping him into mag that's much higher might be contributing to the problem. Not that you can do much about it now, but just food for thought.

I completely understand and agree. Like you said, not much can be done about that.

 

[Mogwai]

Water parameters:
Salinity:1.025
Nitrates:6.4
Phosphates: .07
Calcium: 427
Mag: 1
Alk: 9.3
pH: 8.3
Temp: 77.6-78.5

see anything weird?

Mag: 1???

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Looks like (to me at least) the star had some type of infection in it's body cavity and is now rotting from the inside. Just a theory. I'm basing it off of how anemones often get cavity infections from re-ingesting water they had previously ejected into the bag during transport: maybe something similar happened to this sea star. Maybe it's regurgitating some of that rotting material in an attempt to purge the infection.

Then again, sea stars and other echinoderms have separate openings for taking in and ejecting seawater (as far as I'm aware) than just a single "mouth" like an anemone, so maybe the mechanism is different. I've never known anybody to medicate sea stars, though, so who knows if this is fixable based off what I'm guessing.

I only know of one instance of stars being medicated, and that was at Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium for Sea Star Wasting Disease. It was successful, but I don’t know what antibiotic(s) they used. (I discuss this in my quote below.)

OP, I’ll let the others handle the parameters - the only thing I have to add to that conversation is that I’ve heard some inverts are particularly negatively affected by high magnesium levels (though I don’t think your level would be high enough to cause serious issues). With that out of the way, if you think it may be bacterial, I have some tips that may help with bacterial infections in my quote below (low temp, low nutrients, high oxygenation), and you could try some experimental antibiotic treatments (like the iodine dip discussed in the quote below - I have no idea how long a dip like that would take of you try it, I’d recommend reading up on relatively similar treatments before attempting it) and let us know how they go, but there is, admittedly, a nonzero chance they’ll kill your star before whatever this is does. (Speaking bluntly here, however, from what I’ve heard, there’s likely a decent chance your star will die either way, so, personally, if others think some sort of experimental antibiotIc treatment might be worth an attempt, I’d give it a shot - I’m not an expert though.)

The iodine dip is an interesting idea - no idea if it would work, but I’m curious to find out.

That said, if (it’s a big if) your star’s bacterial infection is similar to Sea Star Wasting Disease (which you can decide by looking at the symptoms for it yourself) - where bacteria on the starfish’s surface actually suffocate the star an iodine dip may actually be helpful in treatment by killing off the surface bacteria and allowing the star to get oxygen again (Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium used antibiotics successfully on their stars to cure the disease a few years back, and this would theoretically have a similar effect). Unfortunately, Google seems unable to provide me any information about other starfish illnesses and diseases right now, so this is the only one I can seem to find any info on for the moment, but if the symptoms are similar, giving the star a somewhat cooler (probably ~75F vs most tanks being kept at 77-78F), low nutrient environment with high oxygenation after the iodine dip could potentially help with recovery, as the bacterial species that cause SSWD are copiotrophic (they like high nutrients), so the cooler water and low nutrients would slow bacterial growth while the oxygen helps the star recover from suffocating. The cooler temp might also slow the star’s healing though (many marine organisms grow more slowly in cooler temperatures), so that is something to consider before trying any of the above potential advice.

Beyond that, from what I’ve heard, depending on conditions and the individual species, a healthy sea star should be able to start recovering from serious injuries (like lesions or lost limbs) within ~3 months. Depending on severity and water quality, though, I’d guess a timeframe of ~6-9 months wouldn’t be too unrealistic.

SSWD or not, though, let us know what you end up doing for treatment and how it goes. I really am curious if the iodine would help or not.

Also, out of curiosity, what is your starfish? I saw one of the comments mention a sand sifter, but I don’t see any specifics in your post.