Starfish needs your help

[Tristan T]

Hi

Hope you can help me.

I have a starfish in a 90 gallons tank with a yellow tang, blue tang, 2 perculiar clownfish, 1 cinamon clownfish.

The starfish is suffering as its' skin is peeling off.

If you know the cause of this and what I can do to save the fish, please let me know.

Thanks for your advice.

Tristan :help:

[ajx22]

Originally posted by Tristan T
Hi

Hope you can help me.

I have a starfish in a 90 gallons tank with a yellow tang, blue tang, 2 perculiar clownfish, 1 cinamon clownfish.

The starfish is suffering as its' skin is peeling off.

If you know the cause of this and what I can do to save the fish, please let me know.

Thanks for your advice.

Tristan :help:

Hello and welcome to AquariumPros.ca Tristan.

First off...I will TRY to help you, but I don't have all the info necessary to do so properly.


What kind of starfish is it? (color and description-better yet a photo- if you don't know the name).
Complete listing of your tanks parameters.


The biggest problem with starfish being kept in captive systems is that we don't really know what they eat in the wild. Starfish are pretty much immortal (when kept in proper conditions) when it comes to fish, and it can take a long time to show any signs of stress (their only real problem)...but once they do start to show signs of not doing well...it's usually too late (they have very slow metablisms so things can take a long while to show up). :( It is possible that it has some sort of bacterial or parasitic infection, but it's not that likely.

Starfish also need very high quality water conditions...so without knowing your water parameters...this could be a possibility (not trying to insult your reef-keeping abilities). Are all your levels in check? A big one would be salinity as well as copper content in the tank water!! These are VERY important! Did/do you use RO/DI water? If you're using tap water - then you could have a higher concentration of TDS (especially copper) in the water which is basically poison to inverts.

The most likely possibility (if the water conditions are in check) would be that it is suffering from malnutrition. I would try to offer it many different types of food to make sure it's not suffering from malnutrition. Try just about anything (pellets, frozen formulations for omnivores, etc.) and watch to see if it's eating it. If it does...KEEP FEEDING it what it likes.

Do you have a lot (50+ lbs) of live rock to be providing food? Starfish (most) are grazers - and keeping a large supply of rock for them to graze is about the best thing that you can do in absence of target feeding.

Please let us know the info I have requested (and anything else that you think may be pertinant) so that we can try to assist you some more.

I hope that this info helps you a little, and that your starfish recovers soon.

Best regards,

[Tristan T]

Hi Ajx22,

Sorry, I don't know the exact name of my Starfish. Unfortunatly, it died today.

I measure the level of water every 3 days to ensure everything is alright. I also have the RO/DI which helps to provide good water to the fish. However, I don't have 50lbs of live rock. I only have about 20 to 23 lbs and the rest is Lava rock.

As advised, I will put some more live rocks in my aquarium in the next few weeks.

Thanks Ajx22 for taking the time out to answer my question.

Regards,
Tristan

[ajx22]

:( Sorry to hear the news.

As I mentioned, once there is a visable problem...it is usually too late.

You sound like you are doing everything the right way...so this was likely a "freak" situation.

Good luck in the future,