starfish hurt leg

I noticed that my sand sifting starfish had one leg out of the sand and copods where eating on it, just the other day I had found a spot on the leg of the starfish that looked bleached white. Could something have stug him and now it is letting the copods eat it off, Because the only part of the starfish out of the sand was the spot that was bleached white... can anyone help me with this please.....

 

Chances are good that your Star Fish is dying and melting. This seems to be somewhat common with sand sifting stars. Eventually the sand bed is depleted of the flora and funa they need and they slowly starve to death.

An image if possible would help.

Moved to-----Inverts.

 

The image is small.

A damaged leg to a Star Fish is not much of a concern, heck you can chop off legs and they grow back ( I do not recommend this). If it remains isolated to the leg it may just be injury and the pods are just eating dead tissue, because that is what they do.

If the central disk starts to show graying areas with tissue sloughing off that is typically a very bad sign.