Starfish splitting?

[mattman7858]

hey my sandstar appeared to have severed about a cm off one of his arms, but today on my glass i saw a 6 armed mini sandstar! is this normal/healthy for it?

[Anemone]

More than likely, your sand star is starving to death. They begin to fall apart like that when they are starving. Unfortunately, only the largest tanks generally have enough sandbed fauna to keep them alive over a year.

The mini star you saw is likely a fairly common hitchhiker. They reproduce through fission, so you often see them with different-sized arms, and numbers of arms from one or two up to six or seven.

FWIW,
Kevin