I have a 55 gallon saltwater aquarium with a variety of fish along with about 10 small blue hermits and snails along with 2 sand sifting stars. Nothing has been added in the past 4 months. All of my chemicals are testing normal.

One day I notice one of my stars (a week ago considered the more mobile and healthier of the two) has developed a 'hole' in one of his legs. If I saw it in a pet store I would say something had taken a bite out of one of the legs within a quarter inch of it's 'body'. My fish do not have mouths big enough to have done that much damage without sitting there a while munching on him and I have never known them to even notice the stars existence. By the next day said leg was disconnected from the star. Day three...3 of the remaining legs have 'holes' in them in different places. He is still alive, moves around, not as much as last week though, and he isn't burying himself at all...the fish are still ignoring his existance.

Is there any chance the hermits are waging war at night?

Any clue what's happening? The other star is fine and dandy, no marks or behaviors that are abnormal.

When a star gets damaged sometimes you get 2 stars...I assume you need a part of the 'body' on each piece of the star for it to have a chance of living...I still want confirmation that I am not killing a living thing by disposing of the unattached legs before they damage my water balance.

and the questions keep coming...what is the correct word for the 'body' or hub of a star?

i would quarantine the star fish. Dont kill it just yet, but you dont want it to polute the tank, just get a cheep pump and a fish bowl place it buy ur tank for light and place him in there maybe, idk it might make it worst, id call a really smart fish store i have one here in SC, that i ask a lot of stuff, but make shure they know what they are talking about

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Glad to be of any help-Austin.

i have a separate 10 gallon for 'problems' but star fish are so finicky I don't want to kill it by overstressing it in a new tank while it's already ill...but at the same time if he's dying I don't want him damaging my other star or the water and by effect my fish.

yea it might help, but like what you said it could stress him out, idk what you should do, and i dont want to say anything incase you do it and it kills him

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Glad to be of any help-Austin.