Hi Chris,

Having your seastar out of the water isn't good. How bad it is depends
on the species - For example, here in Washington state our most
commonly seen star, the Ochre Star (Pisaster ochraceus), is often left
high and dry by the outgoing tide and is capable of surviving several
hours out of water. Most other species aren't nearly as resilient and
there are some that would probably die in under one hour of exposure.
The thing is that none of them, to my knowledge, will voluntarily climb
out of the water.

Your star, whatever species it is, probably climbed onto his perch
while it was immersed and when the water level dropped he simply shut
down into low tide mode. That's characterized by clamping down on the
substrate and not moving - essentially, he's trying to not dry out
before the tide comes back in.

What you need to do is cause the tide to rise by shutting down any
system that drops the water level in the display tank. When the star
has been immersed for 30 minutes or so he may just crawl to a lower
part of the tank and the problem will be solved. If he doesn't move
down on his own then you'll need to sneak up on him. Generally
speaking, stars keep a pretty loose grip on the substrate except when
they feel threatened. The thing to do is wait till he's been immersed
long enough to relax and then sweep him off his perch with one smooth
and fairly quick movement. Do NOT exert much pressure! If he's relaxed
it won't take much force to displace him but if he has been able to
clamp down using more force will just injure him. If he's holding on
too tight to remove, just wait another 30 to 60 minutes for him to
relax and try again.


Radially yours,

Alex