short of moving the eel to another tank, not much. The Moray in a reef tank is probably going to be additiional problems down the road, expecially if your rock is not epoxied in place (yeah, I know, just try and catch one in a reef aquarium!).

If the water params are really good, the sea star will recover and grow new limbs to replace the rays that were torn off each piece. Chances of recovery are really good for the parts htat have a large part of the central disc included with the rays, if there is no oral opening or part of the stomach apparatus, recovery chances are low, but still possible. No additional antisepsis is needed, no additional treatments or additives either. Maintaining rock-steady salinity and providing steady temps are about all that you can do at this point.

Good luck, sorry to hear about this, I hope that you end up with two sea stars, although this is not what I would consider a means of captive propagation

 

Yes, the snowflake is going to have to move out, catching him is going to be somewhat unpleasant, and he'll have to take his chances with my trigger.

 

wow thats amazing...my snowflake eel is such a wimp :funny:

My yellow tang beats him up and steals food right out of his mouth

so sorry to hear about your star though...I hope it's alright

 

He should be alright with the trigger. I've heard eels make great companions with triggers, lionfish, and puffers. Not always, mind you! But generally speaking, I've heard eels don't bother with the predators mentioned above, and that the predators don't bother with the eels either.

On the other hand - I have heard where one guys SFE ended up eating his lionfish, and both ended up dead...

Nothing is ever for sure in this hobby - it's almost worst than going to the casinos! However, if you wanna look at odds, I'm sure he'd be much better off in the FO tank than in a reef!

HTH

 

It probably was the Eel, but did you have any salinity swings recently? The first starfish I owned, before I new any better, had a similar reaction when I didn't acclimate it correctly. Later on I killed another one with a careless water change. It looked very similar to what you describe. Lost limbs, open wounds, etc.

Later on I kept a large snowflake with several starfish, and never had a problem. Probably had a wimpy Eel like kita_katan.

 

I wouldn't think the snow flake eel would attack a sea star.
Could a cat have got to it when it was up at the water line?
Or, a change in salinity would cause this as well. The snow flake
eels are shy and passive I thought. I had one and it was the biggest baby in the tank. The only risk I seen was small fish and shrimp.

 

There’s always exceptions though…

 

I was surprised at the SFE attacking the star as well, but he is somewhat aggressive, aggressive enough to bite me at least. Salinity is very stable and I havnt had a water change for a week, I am 99.9% sure that it was attacked and not sick or something, I had a sand sifting star once that got sick and I didnt look like this, looked more like a melting then ripped up flesh. Also the 5 pieces all seem to be in good health for the time being. 4, 1 comet and 1 with 2 comets. The cat idea is definately plausible as I have 3 and they did kill my prize clown trigger some months ago, but I have most of the top open now and I dont think they go up there anymore, although I did last see the star at the surface.