Hole in Brittle Star

[stang5_o2002]

Last night my girlfriend and I went up to Athens, Ohio to have dinner. We always stop at the two LFS up there that carry salt water stuff. I just wanted to get some snails fromt the lfs that i shop at all the time. We decided to stop at the other one that she used to work at. Its a sad excuse for a lfs. Bad management, horrible tanks filled with mojano and glass anemones. Not to mention dying corals and poor looking water. Well, my girlfriend spotted a brittle star in the damsel tank that had been there for several months. She decided to rescue it by buying it. We didnt look it over or anything. I had to bag it up cause the college kid that worked there was petrified of it and even dropped it on the counter trying to get it from the net to the bag. I just told him to watch out id take care of it. I picked the poor thing up and put it in the bag. When we got home i put it in the 5 gal that i use for a quarantine sometimes. Nothing in there but the evil damsel, some hermits, and snails. This is when i noticed the huge hole in the top of its disc. Anyway, is there anything i can do for it? Im gonna leave it where it is cause if its a disease, i dont want it spreading to my other stars. Any ideas on treatment?

[iglowce]

i've never seen such thing. anyone has any idea?

[BrianPlankis]

The hole is a sign of shipment stress or poor acclimation. It may not have been bad acclimation on your part, you see this quite a bit at LFS because they don't take the 2+ hours necessary to acclimate sea stars, and some wholesalers or collection stations don't as well. Some are very sensitive to salinity changes and the body starts to decompose.

But don't throw it out yet, some of them are able to recover from this condition. It probably won't help to feed it much right now, but you could try feeding it just a couple of mysis and if it takes them it might be OK to feed it to help it recover.

A five gallon is hard to control salinity and right now it needs extremely stable salinity or it will have an even harder time recovering. Unfortunately there isn't much else that I know of you can do for it. Maybe Ophuria will chime in with any more knowledge. You will want to keep all parameters stable as possible. Good luck!

Brian

[BrianPlankis]

You should also remove the hermits, they could pick at the wound and irritate it.

B.

[Rob]

Brian, thanks for jumping in, as usually your expertise is much appreciated.. :)

[Ophiura]

You may, in fact, be interested in seeing a series of pictures of my brittlestar (the same species - Ophiomastix annulosa). Often times, these injuries to the disk can be related simply to eating too big a meal, and the food punches right through. In acclimation shock I would expect to see some sign of disintegration of the arms.

http://home.att.net/~ophiuroid/assets/images/mastix_regen2.jpg

Note the time frame - 9 days - simply astonishing!

Another:
http://home.att.net/~ophiuroid/assets/images/regenseries.gif

Brian is absolutely right :D The thing to do, simply, is keep params ideal. This is the best thing for it, in addition to removing any critters that might be a pest (eg hermits). Or consider isolating the star in the tank in a container (such as a critter keeper). But ideally the star would just hide at this point.

It is especially important that specific gravity remain at 1.025-1.026.

It is very unlikely it is a disease. In fact, brittlestars have a fascinating assemblage of symbiotic bacteria that can fight off all sorts of mysterious things (and are being studied for our use, too).

However, if the arms do start falling off, that is a bad sign. I don't give up hope real easily, but it isn't the best thing. That being said I've seen stars in very bad shape that have recovered nicely.

[stang5_o2002]

I really dont have another tank i can put it in other than my two displays. They each have stars in them and on the off chance it is a disease, i dont want the others to catch it. I've been keeping the salinity in check in the morning and evening everyday. He seems to be doing fine. He eats and hides quickly if you turn a light on him. The hole seems to be a bit smaller today. I did take the hermits out on the first day. They didnt seem to bother him, but better safe than sorry.

As far as leg deterioration, a couple of the "bubble tips" did fall off in the bag on the way home and the tip (1\4") of one leg. But that was on the first day and there are no other signs of it.

Thank you very much for all the help. I'll keep this post updated on his progress.

Todd

[stang5_o2002]

I know this is hard to believe, but when i got home from work this evening, this is what i found. I cant believe this little guy is healing up this quickly!

http://i36.photobucket.com/albums/e14/stang5_o2002/100_0655.jpg

[gwen_o_lyn]

wow- thats amazing!
Glad to see he is doing so well.

[CarmieJo]

Hi Ophiura,

:welcome: to TR. Thanks for the good info.