Blue Linkia Star

[jdebnam]

I've had a Blue Linkia starfish for about 2 1/2 years. Recently, however, I think maybe it's met it's untimely demise! It seemed to be "missing in action" for several days, then we found a couple "arms". There are 2 rather large Brittle Stars in the tank and we wonder if they could have attacked and dismantled the Linkia. Also, one of the arms still crawls around and even climbs up on the glass!!! Very strange looking - no body or mouth - just the arm! Has anyone ever experienced this? Will it eventually die or what? Specs on the tank are: 80 gallons, VHO lighting, 120 pounds live rock, assorted xenia and other soft corals, clown fish, hippo tang, and a coral beauty. There's also a 6-legged white sand sifting starfish. Everybody else looks great - just wondering about this phantom linkia!

[Boogiechillin]

It's hard to support a grown linkia in only 80g for long - you did quite well to keep it alive that long. I seriously doubt that anything else attacked it; odds are that it disintegrated as a result of slow starvation or a rapid fluctuation in pH or salinity (Have you recently let the top off slide or done any big water changes too quickly?)

The mobile limb could potentially regrow into an entirely new star. As long as some bit of the neural ring from the central part of the star was retained, there's enough of a nervous system in place to keep the limb alive. However, it's a crapshot as to whether the limb has sufficient reserves at this point to grow enough to form a new mouth before it starves. Not much you can do, just keep your fingers crossed.