Red thorny star lost a leg

One of our 2 red thornys lost a leg and one of the peppermint shrimp was gonig nuts on him, I moved him away from the rockwork onto the the other side of the tank and the shrimp are leaving him alone now anyone know if this is normal?
I've heard that they can shed legs that become new stars on occasion.
Here is pics

Missing leg 1


Missing leg 2

 

I know harliquens eat stars, didn't know peppermints did. The star will be just fine, they regenerate their lost arms. No worries. I don't know how you'll keep the shrimp off him though, can you isolate one or the other? Least till it heals. Good luck

 

I told the wife if he's still alive in the morning I'll move him to the nano, the only problem there is it's a 24g tank with about 12 hermits in it, he may be better off fending with the shrimp

 

Great looking star, never seen that color before. They should be fine, I would worry about who did this to them. That looks like the mo of a Harlyquin shrimp.

 

no harlequin in there, 1 skunk, 3 peppermint 1 coral band, as long as he survives I'm good with that, and we actually have 2 of those guys, their both fully grown and only about 3" from tip to tip, got them from reefscavengers.com for like $7 each or something

BTW Luna your slacking I posted some pics in my 24g nano thread the other day :O)

 

I did see it, re-read the thread.

 

:-[

Sorry, but shedding leg or showing any kind of deterioration is pretty sure sign starfish is checking out.

Especially if shrimp or hermits are feeding off already dead flesh on the star.

They can take a while to die.

I would pull as soon as possible.


Sorry,



:-/

 

Sometimes I hate it when Omard is right...

This morning he was covered in black specs, assuming the anenome was stinging the hell out of him since he was right by it, barely moving so its been removed from the tank

 

How old is your tank? they need lots of bacteria to survive

 

um that tank is about 7yrs old, the other one is doing great so that one was probably just weak from shipping and didnt quite pull through, we only got these guys about 3 weeks ago