Fromia Starfish made a mistake...

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MacDracor

Aquarium Advice Addict
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May 1, 2011
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Tacoma, WA
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My Marbled Fromia Star is losing a leg in the typical disintegrating fashion. I am fairly sure I know the cause. Lacking a brain, he went foraging for food under a bubble coral and one leg in particular got right up in there with the tentacles.

He's been in the tank (55gal) for almost 2 months and always done very well.
While of course I can't verify that he's been eating (my eyes just aren't that good, what with his diet being microscopic and all), he's grown and always looked healthy until now, so I think it's safe to assume he's been eating well.

pH 8.3
Ammonia 0, Nitrites 0, Nitrates 3, Phosphates almost undetectable (less than 0.25), Calcium 440, temp 80. Only thing I dose is Calcium and Essential Elements once a week, but very conservatively.

First three responders: Let me save you some time. He was acclimated slowly, over several hours and transferred without contact to air. It's been months. I'm fairly sure this is related to the coral stinging him.

Basically... has ANYONE had a non-brittle star ever recover from a leg disintegrating? If so, was anything special done? He's managed to crawl a good 8 inches away from the coral across the LR, so I know he can still move. But the pic shows decently just how badly he's hurt.
Any suggestions would be appreciated.
 
I do know they can recover from missing a leg but whether this is a progressing problem or not I do not know. I really wonder whether the bubble coral is the reason why. I have an orange sea star that travels over my bubble coral and he has not suffered any recourse for doing it and I have a huge Bubble coral that is 14+ yrs old.
 
Well, obviously I can't 100% guarantee that the coral did it, but I'm reasonably sure the leg that has dissolved is the one that was in the coral's tentacles. Also, my bubble coral is a little strange. A while back it started to bail out one polyp but changed its mind so part of it isn't even attached to the skeleto. Has not stopped it from growing or feeding though.
The star is still moving around like it's grazing so maybe I'll get lucky. My understanding is that stars regrow legs in the wild all the time but usually die from it in aquaria. I generally do very well with inverts so maybe I'll get lucky.
 
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