New starfish in trouble - Help!

[Sker]

Well, I ordered a clean up crew and red starfish (Fromia sp.) from FF express. It arrived yesterday morning, but I could not get home until 6:30 PM last night to put the critters in the tank. Well all of the clean up crew is doing well no casualties. But the starfish is not, when I floated the bag with the starfish in it I could see one of legs had the skin peeled back a little bit exposing the muscle tissue. Well I slowly added water over an hour, hoping for the best. Well I looked in the tank this morning and the starfish had moved to a another rock but the leg had decomposed a little more. Anyway my question is will the leg regenerate or is the starfish on his way out. Also do I need to isolate the starfish so the micro-hermits/fish do not pick on his open wound.

By the way the salinity is at 1.24, all paramaters perfect except a little nitrates at 10 ppm.

Thanks,

[SCETT316]

Sorry about your red starfish. From what I have read, you need to acclimate starfish, much more than just one hour. Some ppl even do it slowly over a period of 6 hours. They are very delicate species, and do get stressed during transport.
The same thing happened to me, with 2 that I added to my tank, a while ago, mine did not make it. I only acclimated them for about 2 hours.
I recently tried again. I acclimated for about 3 hours using a drip system, and a week later lost it as well.
Next time I get one I will go for a much longer acclimation period.
They are great for the reef, and so beautiful.
HTH

[mr9iron]

I agree with Scett316. You should definetly acclimate very very slowly over several hours because from my reading they are very susciptible to water quality changes especially salinity. If your star fish does survive it will eventually regrow its leg but this may take quite a while. You probably dont need to worry about removing the star from your tank because IME if they feel threatned or bothered they will move. HTH;)

[organicreefer]

ive got two starfishes and both were acclimated like everything else in my tanks ,for about an hour,and they are doing great.and since you noticed the damage to his leg while floating in the bag ,i guess we can rule out youre acclimation procedure as a cause.in reef notes 4 ,julian sprung talks about mysterious starfish disentigrations and theorizes about a few different causes,heavy metal poisoning (copper)and vibriosis are a couple i can think of off hand (i think)anyway ill dig around for the book,i cant find it right now,and ill get back to you.

[SPasse]

Hi All,

As others have indicated above, starfish are extremely sensitive to changes in specific gravity/salinity because abrupt changes in the area can cause internal organ/tissue damage.

Biologists that have studied this issue recommend a 4 to 6 hour drip acclimation process.

Unfortunately, even if you provide for this kind of acclimation, you new specimen may already be damaged from a previous, less than deliberate transition. And internal tissue damage is accumulative.

Because of all of the variables, in water parameters when you move a specimen from one environment to another, people may have the experience that a smaller acclimation time period “worked for them”. However, all this really proves is that because the parameter shift was within tolerance “in that particular case” they “got away with it.

For example, If a specimen came from native waters that had a specific gravity of 1.026 and was not subjected to significant shifts in this parameter throughout capture, and distribution and finally, placement in your tank, a smaller acclimation period would be required.

However because you can not really count on this at all, an extended acclimation period is called for to minimize as much damage as you have control of

Regards,

Scott Passe

[organicreefer]

spasse ,if you have a link handy i would very much like to read the paper or study to wich you refer,not doubting you, just interested to learn.ive heard of the long acclimation procedure for starfish and i beleive snails too,but pretty much only second hand(on the boards).acclimation ,at some point,could have been the cause for his starfishes trouble,but he noticed the damage in the bag (before he acclimated) so at least his acclimation didnt cause the problem.i would tend to think that most moves from aquarium to aquarium wouldnt be all that drastic a change, excluding the extremes.ime ive never lost ANYTHING that i could attribute to acclimation ,ever.and i have always acclimated for about an hour.
still havent found that book im in the middle of painting/redecorating( so the new tank can fit;) )and i cant find shhhhhhhhhhh

[Sker]

Thanks for all your responses, unfortunatley my red starfish did not make it through the weekend. This is my first casualty since starting up this tank 7 months ago. I believe the starfish was a goner before I even put him in the tank, but next time I will be sure to acclimate over a 4 to 6 hour time period.

Thanks,

[SPasse]

Organicreefer,

Here is a good starting point acclimation.

http://www.reefs.org/library/article...atisation.html

Interestingly, if the specific gravity is very much different, as Keith Clarke uses in his example, he advocated a 15 hour drip acclimation process.

Something else touched on in their articles is the hypo (low) salinity issue. Natural seawater averages around 1.025 or 1.026 with some locations such as the Red Sea being even higher.

Unfortunately, many collectors, distributors, and LFS keep their systems at very low levels (for a number of erroneous reasons) and this probably contributes to the 80 to 90% mortality rate that Dr. Ron cites, (for another species) even when the hobbyist uses a proper acclimation process.

I noted that some of the links in the above article were dead, I will try to determine the current (If any) URL’s.

Sker,

Sorry to hear about the loss of your starfish, but as you can see, the mortality percentages with these critters is not very good. I agree that it was also probably “a goner” before you received it.

Regards,

Scott Passe

[SCETT316]

Sker: I am sorry about your starfish. I know how it feels, I felt the same way. I too agree that even before you get them, sometimes no matter how careful you are, they have already suffered enough damage during collection, transport etc.
As I said I have not had luck with the ones I have gotten, and I really want one in my reef.
I asked my LFS that when I order another one, the minute they receive it, I will go p/u, (so it does not have to go through the added stress of going into the LFS tank, then mine) and take it home and start my slow drip acclimation, and hopefully it will live.

[SPasse]

Hi All,

SCETT316 makes a good point about “intercepting” a specimen before if is “subject” to one more chemistry change at your LFS. Just examine it in the bag, and reject a specimen with any visible damage.

Another strategy is to buy the specimen and have the LSF hold it for a couple of weeks, with the understanding that if it craters, you get your money back.

Regards,

Scott Passe