Linckia Starfish Dead

Last week i bought a linckia starfish and he started going down hill a coupe days ago and i was hoping it would pull through but it didnt.We had friends visiting and im pretty sure they pulled the starfish out to look at him. UGH! Trust me we had a nice little talk about touching anything in my tank! Anyways he died and fell behind my rock wall, is it gonna throw my levels off if i let my crabs eat him? I really dont want to move the rocks because once i do it ends up being an all day project and i can never get them back to how i had them

 

Linkia stars can sometimes be pretty large. How big was it? How much live rock do you have?

 

He was pretty small, 2 inches maybe. I have about 50 pounds of liverock in my display and another 15 in my sump

 

I'd assume with enough things to eat it and the LR, you should be ok. I'm not an expert though.

 

That's part of the trouble, they don't really know with much certainty what linckia stars eat, and they rarely do well in home aquaria.

Also they are extremely sensitive to osmotic changes, so any parameter change, or long term exposure to the air can cause significant damage. I quote from liveaquaria description.

"The Blue Linckia Sea Star is very intolerant of sudden changes in oxygen levels, salinity and pH of the water, and cannot tolerate copper-based medications. The drip-acclimation method is highly recommended for all Sea Stars due to their intolerance to changes in water chemistry. The Blue Linckia Sea Star should never be exposed to air while handling, and should be carefully monitored for the presence of a small parasitic snail, Thyca crystallina."

I don't forsee the star decay being too huge of a problem if you CuC is adequate in size, just keep an eye on it. You can always do a small water change to offset the decay as needed.