Red fromia not doing so well

[Biophage]

Hey all, I have a red fromia who has begun losing some skin on the tip of one arm, he's done great for almost a year, added him to my system after it had been running for 13 months. I recently installed an ato, and I miscalculated something and had my salinity drop from 1.025 to 1.023, possibly as low as 22, I was stupid and didn't double check it. A few days later I noticed some skin flaking off the tip of his arm, it didn't get worse the next day which left me hopeful, the day after that the skinless portion of the are had fallen off (about an 8th of an inch of the tip) and he lost another small amount of skin. This has been going on for about a week, it's happening pretty slowly. He could be starving I guess, but I have a lot of live rock and algae for him, I tried feeding him some mysis by holding some between him and the glass the way I fed the stars at my old job, but that was always with chips and balis, and he didn't seem interested and wouldnt stick. As of today the skin around the edge of qhere the damage is still is a bit flaky and I don't know if there's anything I can do. Makes me real upset cuz I don't want to lose him, I consider it a personal failure sometimes when an animal dies in my care. If anyone has any suggestions I'm completely open to them. I even **** of possibly removing the arm below the damage to stop the spread and have the arm grow back. I've seen it work in very rare circumstances but I don't know if I can stomach that. I apologise for such a long post, I'm just trying to be thourough in the info I'm giving you.

System parameters

Nitrate 2
Calc 415
Alk 7 ( a bit low)
Phos 0.1
pH 8.0 ( also a bit low )
SG 1.025

 

[gonzo620]

I’ve had my blue linckia for over 4 years. I’ve been really successful feeding him. In the beginning I used new era grazing rings but since they discontinued them I had to find something new. I’ve been using masstick for the past couple of years really good stuff.

 

[norfolkgarden]

If you have too many asterina starfish they are direct competitors and much more resilient than the fromia.

Our red fromia is only 10 months old. But it gets hit with small amounts of RODI/lower salinty water when I slowly dump it in the tank.
(5 minutes to add a gallon of RODI water, but you can watch it mix a little bit in the display. )

Hope your starfish survives. They are beautiful.
I wouldn't do anything to add to its demise (cut off the affected leg) but others may have better advice.

 

[norfolkgarden]

No ATO and I work out of town during the week.
Manual top off and our salinity shifts from 1.023 or 1.024 back to 1.026 almost every week.

I will bring it down/set it with the water changes at 1.024 and it will creep back up during the week.

I do usually eyeball where the fromia is in the tank and do most of the mixing on the far side.
But if it's sitting in the middle of the tank I just top off a little slower.

 

[Biophage]

If you have too many asterina starfish they are direct competitors and much more resilient than the fromia.

Our red fromia is only 10 months old. But it gets hit with small amounts of RODI/lower salinty water when I slowly dump it in the tank.
(5 minutes to add a gallon of RODI water, but you can watch it mix a little bit in the display. )

Hope your starfish survives. They are beautiful.
I wouldn't do anything to add to its demise (cut off the affected leg) but others may have better advice.

I have no asterina at all, just 3 turbos, like 10 cerith, a few trochus and some nassarius.

The only reason I have considered removing the leg, is because I've been doing a massive amount of research about everything starfish related. I've read that others have had success with removal followed by topical treatments of malachite green or iodine. In such cases the animal grew the arms back and was ok. I reeaallly don't want to do it, and I'm hoping I don't have too. That would be a very last ditch effort and only done in a scenario where he was clearly not gonna live.

 

[Biophage]

I’ve had my blue linckia for over 4 years. I’ve been really successful feeding him. In the beginning I used new era grazing rings but since they discontinued them I had to find something new. I’ve been using masstick for the past couple of years really good stuff.

Wow, 4 years with a linkcia is very impressive. What and how do you feed it?

 

[norfolkgarden]

I’ve had my blue linckia for over 4 years. I’ve been really successful feeding him. In the beginning I used new era grazing rings but since they discontinued them I had to find something new. I’ve been using masstick for the past couple of years really good stuff.

Too cool!

After putting off buying masstick for about a year you have finally given me the incentive I needed.

(Lol, other finicky fish finally ate other things)

You can watch the starfish eat the masstick?

Thanks again!

 

[Biophage]

Sry

Wow, 4 years with a linkcia is very impressive. What and how do you feed it?

Sry. I didn't see that u fed it masstick. I'll give it a shot. Ty

 

[netdawg]

Bio, I'm wondering if you've added inhabitants or changed any other feeding to the tank in the last few weeks? considering this fromia isn't a new add I've had friends see over time that a drop in the amino acids in the tank can cause an unhealthy response in many different starfish. Those same keepers swear that a tank with healthy levels of amino acids (specifically Glycine) will provide an environment where some swings in the key PH/salinity chemistry are tolerable.

Based on Gonzo's success you might want to look into specific composition of the massstick and see where they sit with amino acids. Any chance you dose that already?

 

[Biophage]

Bio, I'm wondering if you've added inhabitants or changed any other feeding to the tank in the last few weeks? considering this fromia isn't a new add I've had friends see over time that a drop in the amino acids in the tank can cause an unhealthy response in many different starfish. Those same keepers swear that a tank with healthy levels of amino acids (specifically Glycine) will provide an environment where some swings in the key PH/salinity chemistry are tolerable.

Based on Gonzo's success you might want to look into specific composition of the massstick and see where they sit with amino acids. Any chance you dose that already?

That is a very good suggestion and I appreciate it. I don not dose any amino acids, just alk and calc supplements and I feed my sps. It's a moot point anyway, I noticed the day after I posted this that he had gotten much worse, so I took him to my lfs, I'm hoping he may heal up and end up being a nice store pet for them. I used to work there and they are very well respected in my area. Hopefully he will be ok. Ty again for your help all.

 

[gonzo620]

Hey guys this is when i first caught him eating the new era ring. He just stumbled on it and had to have some.

Every time after that I would take an 1/8” ball of the ring and mash it flat to the glass. I would then grab the star and press and hold him flat on it till he attached. He would then do his thing take a while but I do see him consume the food. I’ll have set the GoPro up and get a time lapse video that will be sweet!