Starfish Trouble

wrote:
My orange star (starry) got dearmed, one by one.
Dead. My other star... the creature,( brown and tan) got two arms
plucked.


My question. Is shrimp guilty? Am I guilty for lack of food? I feed
them twice daily..brine shimp and Formula One.

Hi CM,

The bad news is that I think you're going to need more information
about your stock before your question can be definitively answered.

The good news is that, by gathering the requisite info, your question
will probably answer itself.

1. You need to know what species of stars you have had (both the dead
one and the survivor). Once you've got this nailed down you can
determine whether they've been getting enough food and, if not, what
that species does when it's starving. Here are a couple of examples
from a cold water environment (NW USA) to give you an idea of the
variability in sea star habits:
1a. Sunflower star (Pycnopodia helianthoides) - This is a voracious and
generalized predator that will eat anything it can get its suction cups
on; snails, bivalves, cucumbers, urchins, crabs, fish eggs, even fish
if it can catch one napping! As long as there's some sort of protein
available, this guy is unlikely to starve BUT there are stories
(unconfirmed) that they will eat their own legs if they are starving.
[BTW: This species has up to 32 arms so it can better afford to
sacrifice one or two in an emergency.]
1b. Stimpson's Sun Star (Solaster stimpsoni) - This one is very nearly
an obligate feeder on sea cucumbers. If it isn't supplied with
sufficient cukes it simply wastes away and eventually dies. It sort of
looks like the animal is deflating over time.

2. What other animals (including hitchikers) do you have in the tank?
There have been reports on R.A.M.R. about shrimp attacking Blue Linkia
stars but it was several years ago and I don't recall any details.
There have also been reports of Cirolanid and other isopods attacking
various stars. This is just an opinion but this scenario seems pretty
unlikely to me. If your stars were victims of this sort of predation I
would think that the damage wouldn't be confined to one arm at a time.

3. Does your stock have potential access to pumps or powerheads? Some
species of star are quite strongly attracted to areas of high flow such
as the intake of a pump.


Traumatically yours,

Alex