Starfish and Urchin dying, help!

[vaguelyreeflike]

My tuxedo urchin has lost all of his spines (still has feet and moves around very slowly), and my echinaster starfish is dissolving from the center outward.

Corals look fine, crabs and snails are fine. Parameters are as such:
Salinity- 1.026
KH- 10.1
Calcium - 525
Magnesium -1290

No3 - 5 (currently slowly raising to 10 with Neo Nitro, 0.5ppm a day, but this started before I began dosing).

PO4- 0.2
About a week ago there was a large spike and then drop in Nitrates, going above 50ppm then back down to 5 in about a week. I also found out that there was stray voltage in the tank over a week ago, that has since been corrected.

Otherwise all other params have been stable.

Any thoughts?

 

[tzabor10]

Electrocution is a negative for most organisms. Try to stay positive

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

Electrocution is a negative for most organisms. Try to stay positive

I’m also assuming it’s due to the voltage incident. Funny how it affects inverts differently from the fish, but makes sense since they’re more grounded.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Any thoughts?

I'd guess it's either the parameter swing, starvation or both:

The problem is that "stray voltage" (inducing voltage, not actual short circuits) does not cause any harm to fish or invertebrates.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Stray voltage is not an issue. Since the animals are not grounded, this is no current flow. Same reason that birds can perch on high tension power lines. If you had an actual short circuit, that can cause chemical changes in the water. Did you get a shock from the tank?

With just a starfish and urchin being infected, they are both echinoderms, so I’d say this is a bacterial infection. This is related to the sea star wasting disease seen in wild starfish, it is not really treatable in home aquariums once damage is seen.

It could also be a coincidence - starvation affecting both at the same time. Water changes like salinity, are pretty rough on evhinoderms.

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

Stray voltage is not an issue. Since the animals are not grounded, this is no current flow. Same reason that birds can perch on high tension power lines. If you had an actual short circuit, that can cause chemical changes in the water. Did you get a shock from the tank?

With just a starfish and urchin being infected, they are both echinoderms, so I’d say this is a bacterial infection. This is related to the sea star wasting disease seen in wild starfish, it is not really treatable in home aquariums once damage is seen.

It could also be a coincidence - starvation affecting both at the same time. Water changes like salinity, are pretty rough on evhinoderms.

Thank you for the detailed response!
I did receive a shock from the tank which is how I noticed, it was once again a Hydor flow pump (second one to do this, but to be fair these are a good few years old). I dont know how long it was “electrified” for, definitely no longer than a week.

Bacterial infection is my fear, the starfish has split into 6 separate legs moving around the tank but almost all of them are degrading as well. However, today I did notice that the urchin has a couple teeny spines growing back! (Or ones I didn’t notice that he didn’t lose yet possibly) and he’s moving around slightly more.

Im hopeful it’s just from the nitrate swing, and that at least the urchin begins to improve.

I cant see it being starvation as it is a 125gal and is quite full of diatoms, biofilms and micro algaes of many varieties, and the Halloween urchin that was in with them was doing fine. If I hear back that the Halloween is doing the same thing I think that will confirm bacterial infection.

 

[Jay Hemdal]

Thank you for the detailed response!
I did receive a shock from the tank which is how I noticed, it was once again a Hydor flow pump (second one to do this, but to be fair these are a good few years old). I dont know how long it was “electrified” for, definitely no longer than a week.

Bacterial infection is my fear, the starfish has split into 6 separate legs moving around the tank but almost all of them are degrading as well. However, today I did notice that the urchin has a couple teeny spines growing back! (Or ones I didn’t notice that he didn’t lose yet possibly) and he’s moving around slightly more.

Im hopeful it’s just from the nitrate swing, and that at least the urchin begins to improve.

I cant see it being starvation as it is a 125gal and is quite full of diatoms, biofilms and micro algaes of many varieties, and the Halloween urchin that was in with them was doing fine. If I hear back that the Halloween is doing the same thing I think that will confirm bacterial infection.

Getting a shock from a tank is due to some defect in the equipment. Stray (induced) voltage is different, you cannot feel it (and neither can the animals!).

Is your tank on a GFI circuit?

You need to be very certain that you resolve this issue, because this is a very serious safety issue for you and that current flow from a short circuit can potentially harm the animals.

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

Getting a shock from a tank is due to some defect in the equipment. Stray (induced) voltage is different, you cannot feel it (and neither can the animals!).

Is your tank on a GFI circuit?

You need to be very certain that you resolve this issue, because this is a very serious safety issue for you and that current flow from a short circuit can potentially harm the animals.

I don’t have a volt meter but I am quite confident the issue is resolved, it was a flow pump that was causing it as the shock stopped happening once that was unplugged. We’ve had this happen once before from the same brand of flow pump as well (both were very old and well used).

The tank is not on a GFI. This is in a store setting btw, not at home, so I am unable to add things like that to it, however it might be a good suggestion to bring up if it will prevent this from happening in the future.

 

[vaguelyreeflike]

Getting a shock from a tank is due to some defect in the equipment. Stray (induced) voltage is different, you cannot feel it (and neither can the animals!).

Is your tank on a GFI circuit?

You need to be very certain that you resolve this issue, because this is a very serious safety issue for you and that current flow from a short circuit can potentially harm the animals.

Also good to know the difference between stray voltage and an electrified tank, I will suggest investing in a voltage meter so we can make sure there is no true stray voltage, and so we can possibly forfeit the “hand test” when trying to find out what is electrifying the tanks.