Starfish exploded?

Well not really exploded. just seems like he's falling apart all over the tank. there are pieces of him everywhere. i have 2 stars. i think they are Red Reef stars if i remember correctly. they were both doing great. then this one started to fall apart...the other is still fine and dandy. im just wondering what would cause something like this, i dont have much in my tank. its a 55 gal, i have a Red Firefish, Purple Firefish, Maroon Clown, and Royal Gamma, Pink Tip anemone, zoos and shrooms. and a cleaner shrimp. and cleaner crew of Scarlet hermits and various snails.


here is the most of the star...just one leg thats left...(still crawling around)

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j62/Vyda/Starleg.jpg


and here is what he's left behind....poor thing..

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j62/Vyda/Starparts.jpg


again its just the one star thats doing this, the other is roaming around on the glass. on the rocks etc...and is doing just fine.

http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j62/Vyda/StaronGlass.jpg

 

hmm. maby a parasite? idk about that could the shrimp be attacking the one but not the other.

 

What are your water parameters at? Any temperature or salinity swings that you're aware of? How long have you had the stars and how did you acclimate them?

 

Water paramiters are good, im at work so cant say exacaly what. (i log them) but i did have a drop in PH last week, but its back to normal now. about 8.4, Salinity is holding around 1.024. Tep is holding about 76deg, I drip acclimated them for about a hour. I've had them for about a month now.

 

Don't mess with them anymore

HI,
I ve seen alot of problems with most starfish in tanks the only one I ve had any luck with are the serpants and maybe some brittel star, the choclates and many others require alot of those pods and other food items that may be limited in many tanks. SO I don't buy them or try to keep them.
Doug

 

How big of a drop did you have?

 

+2 ph swings are deadly to most invertibrates, any idea how much it swings when the lights are out?

 

Wow i never heard of that... That must of sucked

 

Im not sure of the swing between day and night, but the ph drop i had last week took it to about 7.6.

Its just strange that my other star is doing great.

Not sure if this has much to do with it, but when i first got them, one star stayed on the glass near the top of tank for about 3 days, he would just do circles around the tank, then finally down on the rocks and such, the other never got on the glass. Im not sure if this is the one that died or not.

 

That's a pretty big drop so if I was to guess, I would say the ph drop is what killed it. Your other star might just have been lucky.