Blue Linkia Star needs a little help

[DEAD_BY_DAWN]

i was given a very large blue linkia star last night,when placeing it in my tank after about a hour of the drip method ,i noticed there was two small wounds on two of the legs they seem to have gotten a little bigger this morning and it hasnt really moved all night maybe a inch or so is there any kind of dip etc that i can try ..thanks john

[christyf5]

I was under the impression that starfish needed a really long acclimation time. I have also heard that linkias can be pretty sensitive and sometimes don't do so well.

Christy

[Aquattro]

Christy, you're correct. Stars need long acclimation times, and linkias don't do well long term anyway (with exceptions).

[bulletsworld]

Yup, I learned the hard way too with only acclimating a linkia star for an hour. The wounds your seeing are probably the star deteriorating. Mine died from this after a couple of days. Same thing happened the wounds got worse & fish started to pick at the star.

Later I read many articles that claimed you needed to acclimate these stars, said to be extremely sensitive to salinty changes for about 12hours. Anyone know for sure how long?

Hope your Mr. Star makes it. Best of Luck!

[Aquattro]

Mine acclimated about 3 hours. The bag water was very similar to mine, so it wasn't a big change. My star was food for shrimp, so I didn't worry too much, but the three hours seemed fine.

[Samw]

I've had my Blue Linkia now since May 27 (almost 4 months). That animal is definitely one of my favorites in my reef. It looks like its in great shape even though it runs into my Rose BTA once in a while (My orange fromia wasn't as lucky as I hypothesized that it climbed on the glass, slipped, and landed in my rose BTA and got swallowed up since I saw an orange ball of digested goo one morning). I didn't drip acclimate the Linkia at all.

However, previous Linkias and Fromias that I bought all died within a few weeks (rotted away) even though I drip-acclimated them over 12-24 hours. I attributed those deaths to high nitrates. During those days, my nitrates were >75. Since I lowered my nitrates to <1, I have not lost a starfish from rotting. Is your starfish in your fish-only tank? Check your nitrates.

[EmilyB]

Actually, I lost two fromias while my tank was skimmerless for six weeks, and I know the nitrates were high because I keep a large bioload. My orange knobby keeps on chugging tho.

[DEAD_BY_DAWN]

wounds got worse & fish started to pick at the star.

well some bad news after getting home today,the wounds had got alot worse and there was a white fluid comeing out of them three in total,so i had to reomve it from the tank,for its sake and for the safety of the other fish and inverts,thanks for all the posts though