I think my brittle star is dying

[blumarlin]

He has been in the tank since I bought it about 8 mos ago (one of my first additions). The tank had been up & running for well over a year when I purchased it. I had not done a water change in a couple of weeks (usually every week). Ckd water params 3 days ago & ph was 7.8, nitrates 10, ammonia .50 & alk slightly low. I freaked out, it has always been near perfect! After a 10% water change yesterday: ph: 8.0 (added reef sucess buff by red sea), alk: norm, nitrates: still 10, ammonia still .50, calcium: 420, specific gravity 1.022. I fed the tank & saw his arm over a rock & went to feed him & he didnt touch it. My cleaner shrimp soon came & took it. I touched him w/ my tweezers & he barely moved. The lights have gone out & he is still almost in the same place. Was the ph change that abrupt? I have never had a problem w/ it b4. Everyone else in there is fine ...so far. The only thing I have done different to the tank is target feed my corals (soft) lugals. I normally feed phyto feast (but only once a week).

[blumarlin]

What I have in the tank is: yellow tang, regal tang, cora beauty, sixline wrasse, clarki, maroon clown, yellow clown gobie. 1 sally lightfoot, several hermit crabs, 1 hich hicker crab, torch coral, frogspawn, chili coral, candycain, hawaiian feahter duster (tons of little ones on the live rock), purple & blue muchrooms, 4 annemones (due to 2 splits!) leather mushrooms, toad stool & a brain coral (that has been bleached since I got it). And I do have a sump. Thanks in advance, I would appreciate any advice!

[blumarlin]

The brittle star is dead. Removed him today. Nitrates still 10 & ammonia still .50. I will do a water change tommorrow & obviously try to figure out what has gone wrong w/ my tank on my own.

[RickySan]

man im sorry to hear that!!

[nick540]

sorry to hear that and that i could not help!

[js_bass]

Yah that stinks, the exact same thing happen to my red star, but he came through. He didnt move but when i seen a fish go towards him he barely adjusted, and they normally will a little bit but he didnt move, i didnt take him out right then because i didnt think he was dead, a few days later he was fine

[blumarlin]

js_bass now I wonder if I had just left him alone for a day or two longer, maybe he would have been ok. Its really weird, but when I took him out, he was stiff. I laid him on a napkin to examine him for injuries or whatever (nothing, by the way,except he lost a part of a leg in the process of getting him from under the rock). I left him there for about an hour & when I went to dispose of him two of the tips of his arms moved, just slightly?! (no, I am not crazy, legally anyway). My nitrates & ammonia are up so I was thought I should get him out asap.

Do they go through some type of period where thay are lethargic?
Maybe he was like that when I didnt see him a few days @ a time & he just happened to be in my view when it happened? I feel so bad :( . Does anyone know the lifespan on these creatues?

[greenbean36191]

In theory they don't have a defined lifespan. They don't get old like humans. They live until something kills them. For them being stiff is a good sign, not a bad one (unless they're dried out). When they die they turn into limp mush. Dropping legs is also a sign that it's alive, as long as it didn't take much force to separate it. Dropping legs isn't a passive event. The animal has to make physiological changes to the tissue to separate the leg, and that doesn't happen when they're dead. They're almost always lethargic when they aren't hunting, and even more so when they've just had a big meal. Usually they like to seek out a dark crevice to hide in between meals, but if there aren't any predators in the tank they can be "trained" to be in view more often. Not responding to touch isn't a normal thing though, and may have been a sign that things were going downhill, even if it wasn't dead yet.

Some things about the tank are definitely abnormal though. First 1.022 is low for invertebrates, especially echinoderms like your star. It should be at least 1.025. Also, any measurable ammonia in a cycled tank should raise an alarm. Either something is wrong with your test kit, something huge is rotting in your tank, or the tank isn't fully cycled. A dead brittlestar shouldn't raise the ammonia in an established tank, even if you left it to rot completely away. I would take a water sample to an LFS and get a second opinion on that ammonia test.

[blumarlin]

I have done 2 15% water changes since my last post. My params are now: Nitrates 5.0, ammonia 0, cal 420, Ph 8.0, alk norm (red sea test, not specific), & specific gravity 1.023 (I am slowly trying to raise to 1.025). I listed everything that is in my tank previously, except for a few more corals & 2 cleaner shrimp.

Another thing I forgot to mention is a sick bta that I have been trying to nurse back to health for several months. It was once 3" & thanks to a LARGE clarki "loving it to death" it is now the size of a quarter (the clarki now has another nem) & hardly has any tentacles. He looks so sad, but he is not melting & will eat a tiny piece of shrimp or scallop soaked in selcon every 2-3 days. But he is just not looking or getting better!

Greenbean, my question is could the nem be releasing toxins in my water? :confused: