Starfish has a sunken shriveled appearance
- Thread starter lilly.hall
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This is not a good sign I read your tank has been up for a year. When did you get him? How long has he been like this? Did you do any water changes recently or add any additives? Their main diet consists of meaty food and is often fed clams, oysters, etc. in large public aquariums. Starfish are known to starve over many months and/or slowly die from a variety of factors in the aquarium industry and the wild too. It’s called sea star wasting syndrome.
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He just got like this today, I got him 2 months ago. I did a water change a few days ago. I feed it krill and clams and mysis.
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Actually, just to clarify here - sea stars do usually starve in captivity, and when they die they do show a number of sea star wasting disease symptoms, but the starving then dying isn’t SSWD by itself. Some SSWD info: “Symptoms typically include the appearance of white lesions followed by tissue decay, body fragmentation and death, often within only a few days.”
If the star dies without those symptoms, it doesn’t have SSWD, so that’s not its cause of death. Additionally, SSWD actually kills the starfish via bacteria suffocating it, so it’s not directly related to the star starving (though, as I’ve mentioned in a different thread, I suspect - currently without information to back this hypothesis - that the starvation weakens the star to the point of being susceptible to SSWD causing bacteria species that are less potent than their wild disease causing counterparts).
The link where I pulled the above quoted info from:
Yes and there’s simply not enough information about the disease and it keeps changing. Despite decades of research it was just last year they finally found a cause or so they think but nonetheless it’s important for people to know I think. I will say the Monterey Bay Aquarium had this happen about 10 years ago and they think it’s because they were pumping ocean water into the tanks. Sorry should’ve been more clear.Actually, just to clarify here - sea stars do usually starve in captivity, and when they die they do show a number of sea star wasting disease symptoms, but the starving then dying isn’t SSWD by itself. Some SSWD info: “Symptoms typically include the appearance of white lesions followed by tissue decay, body fragmentation and death, often within only a few days.”
If the star dies without those symptoms, it doesn’t have SSWD, so that’s not its cause of death. Additionally, SSWD actually kills the starfish via bacteria suffocating it, so it’s not directly related to the star starving (though, as I’ve mentioned in a different thread, I suspect - currently without information to back this hypothesis - that the starvation weakens the star to the point of being susceptible to SSWD causing bacteria species that are less potent than their wild disease causing co
The link where I pulled the above quoted info from:
Did you heat the water? Which I recommend doing and make sure salinity matches up. Sometimes after a water change it shocks them and they shrivel at this point only time will tell if they are okay or not. And there’s nothing you can/should do they aren’t like fish and can’t be treated with medication.
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Another clarification here: they can’t be treated with medications like copper (I’m not sure on most other meds used in aquaria, but most of them are used to treat things like fish parasites, so I’m not sure that they would be helpful regardless), but they have been treated with antibiotics successfully - for SSWD, no less:
Which I don’t recommend unless you are a marine biologist or marine veterinarian. Again only time will tell. Just try not to make any more drastic or sudden changes.
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