Starfish missing legs.

[Roy G. Biv]

Just some general opinions needed.. My starfish recently are losing their legs. I have several kinds in the tank. 2 red fromia, 2 other fromia and a couple of sand sifters. Am I looking for a crab, shrimp, or fish that is the culprit. One actually is missing all 5 legs I do hear the tank settling, cracks, the kind that make you nervous. It could be a rouge shrimp, but Im not sure.

I also have a pair of skunk cleaner shrimp, and a pair of fire shrimp.

[Avi]

I had somewhat of a similar problem in my 120-gallon reef. I think that the immediate response that you might get from what you describe is that these starfish can't be maintained in a home-reef because no one really knows what they eat. I'd disagree. While I'm not certain if the culprit was a nasty crab that lives in the depths of the live rock in the tank and has eluded capture...or they get severely damaged by getting into the impeller of the powerheads I have in the tank....I took a blue Linckia that had lost all but one "arm"...Put it into my sump and left it there....It's just about recovered with only one leg yet to fully grow back. But even that is on the way to full recovery. That has taken about three months or so. Not much more, in any event, than that.