Chocolate Chip Starfish is developing holes

[bfish5150]

Quick Question: I have this starfish and I have noticed over the past three days that these little craters or dents, approximately 1/16" diameter (there are three of them now) have appeared on the top of the starfish. They almost look like gouges, could my hermit crab have done this to the starfish thinking it was food? Anybody ever heard of this occuring? Thanks.

[Mickadee]

I had a large hermit that pinched off a CCstars leg so it is possibly that a smaller one could pinch holes into the crab..
I would watch the hermit crab and see if you can catch him messing with the star.
how long have you had the star poor acclimation could also cause the holes to appear due to dissentrigation. (and could take a long time to show up)
how big is your hermit crab??


good luck
Mike

[bfish5150]

I've had that CCStar for about one week now and the hermit crab has been in the tank for quite a while. I've seen the hermit crab crawling over the top of the CCStar, but not really digging at it, nothing that would cause these holes in it. Of course I'm not there in front of the tank 24/7 watching him, so it could be a problem with the crab. The specfic gravity, temp and other levels are all good. My primary suspect is the crab, and I've thought about isolating the star from him somehow. I just thought that someone else might have a different answer. Thanks for your help.

-Bill

[Mickadee]

watch the star the next few days and if it looks like the area where the holes are is starting to grow hair and getting bigger it might be more towards the aclimation stars are a bit different than fish in that sort even a slight difference in salinity cause a fatality I am by no means a expert on stars but have many of them and have lost a couple of them due to salinity problems

ex..
I had to leave town for a few days and my tank dropped about an inch of water due to evaporation when refilling I had a jug that has a pin hole on the bottom of it started the trikle and went to the store when I got back the entire jug had emtpied into the tank(( sense went to a semiautomatic topoff system)) salinty went from 1.024 to 1.022 within just a matter of 10 minutes the effects started within a coupele of days with the stars the wasnt moving as much as usual within a week the 2 CCstars that I had started to get holes in them that slowly grew after that. I havent heard of any method of saving stars when the are in this stage either.. the holes looked like it was growing tissue out of the holes but infact it was decaying ..

again good luck.
Mike

[Doug1]

Bill Welome to the reef tank!!!!!!!!!!! We are like neighbors I work in Medford
Echinoderms like sea stars use a complex hydrovascular system rather than muscle to move around. Water is used like hydralic fluid in a series of organic cylinders so to speak, this setup is highly developed in the brittle/serpent stars. The bad thing is that they are very sensitive to change in osmotic pressure caused by changes in salinity or specific gravity.
Standard procedure for acclimating them is to drip tank water into the holding bag or container while floating them in the sump to equalize temp.
Drip them for several hrs, removing some of the bag water now and again. 6 hrs is typical if the SG between your tank and vendors is close, say within .002
Natural sea water tends to run around 1.025-6 tho most LFS tend to run SW tanks at around 1.022