Something Ate My Starfish Legs

[TYmonster]

Something ate my Sand Sifting Sea Stars leg!!
Seriously, check out this photo...

Water Parameters are normal except my Calcium is a bit down.

Its other limbs are normal too.

Any thoughts on potential culprits?!

There are no fish or harlequin shrimp in here.

My only recent addition was that of a Tiger Pistol Shrimp.

 

[MaxTremors]

Starfish, when they are starving, will start to lose limbs, they just sort of disintegrate. Make sure you’re feeding it at least a few times a week. If your tank isn’t massive, and/or if you have other detritivores, there’s just not enough food to sustain a star fish with out frequent targeted feeding.

Edit: it can regrow its arm, you just need to make sure it’s getting enough food. Also, it looks like your tank is pretty new (just based of what the sand looks like), which means there’s even less food, they should only be added to mature, well-established tanks, and even then I recommend against it because like 90% of the time they end up starving to death.

 

[Apollo7235]

Something ate my Sand Sifting Sea Stars leg!!
Seriously, check out this photo...

Water Parameters are normal except my Calcium is a bit down.

Its other limbs are normal too.

Any thoughts on potential culprits?!

There are no fish or harlequin shrimp in here.

My only recent addition was that of a Tiger Pistol Shrimp.

I have a snail-eating Bullseye Pistol, but I’m not sure if they eat starfish..

 

[SaltyT]

Sadly this is a common fate for sand sifting starfish. Most slowly disintegrate and die in home aquariums :(

 

[TYmonster]

Starfish, when they are starving, will start to lose limbs, they just sort of disintegrate. Make sure you’re feeding it at least a few times a week. If your tank isn’t massive, and/or if you have other detritivores, there’s just not enough food to sustain a star fish with out frequent targeted feeding.

Edit: it can regrow its arm, you just need to make sure it’s getting enough food. Also, it looks like your tank is pretty new (just based of what the sand looks like), which means there’s even less food, they should only be added to mature, well-established tanks, and even then I recommend against it because like 90% of the time they end up starving to death.

The sand bed is 6yrs old and clearly the star has done an excellent job at cleaning it up a bit!

I’ll start target feeding per your advice.
Thank you!

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

Honestly take it out before it dies. When they are about to die they burrow down in the sand and you won’t find it before it’s too late. If it already lost a limb then it likely won’t recover in your tank. Sorry but as mentioned above, not a good aquarium pet

 

[Neptune 555]

Oh no what happened? I have a sand sifting sea star... how do you target feed? I am putting clam shells down at night for him to find and eat.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Oh no what happened? I have a sand sifting sea star... how do you target feed? I am putting clam shells down at night for him to find and eat.

That’s a good way. Just put food in the sand bed for them to find

 

[legionofdoon]

It's your tiger pistol shrimp. I actually saw mine attack my sand sifter and my brittle star

 

[sleephinx]

i just woke up and i found this

 

[legionofdoon]

Is that where your pistol shrimp hangs out under that rock?

 

[BestCutter]

I had a Brittle Star that was losing legs for some reason. Nothing that I had in the tank could have been responsible so I figured it was an uninvited crab hiding in a rock. It was only a 30 gal. tank so a friend & I took the rocks out, one by one and put them in a bucket. We found a huge crab tucked in to a hole in a rock. He would not come out for anything. We finally hit him with a blowtorch and he stayed in the hole. I finally took a screwdriver and killed him and dug the pieces out.

All of the Star's legs regrew and he was a happy camper again.

Dennis