Green brittle star hole in body

[chiqui bb]

I have a large green brittle star and yesterday I noticed some white skin flapping on his back. I assumed it was an abrasion from crawling around the rocks and wasn't concerned. This morning I look at him and he has a hole in the center of his body and it looks like he is disintegrating. His body is 1-3/4" in diameter and the hole is more than half of his body. It looks mushy and brown in the center with white around the edges. He is still moving/alive but I assume not for long. What could have caused this?! I'm worried that it's something that may affect my other fish so I'm gonna pull him out.

 

[little_fish]

Check for stray voltage.

It seems like a common issue when things start to disintegrate, but also please post all your parameters.

 

[chiqui bb]

Salinity - 1.026
Ammonia - 0
Nitrate - 0
Phosphate - 0
Calcium - 560
PH - 7.8
Alk - 220

 

[Bifferwine]

I've had this happen before, and it was always either high nitrates or stray voltage.

Identifying, Locating and Curing Stray Voltage in a Saltwater Aquarium

Unfortunately, the stars were never able to recover, even if the problem was fixed.

 

[chiqui bb]

Sounds like I need to invest the $20 for the meter. Now I have the task of "euthanizing" the poor star. I don't want him to suffer. How awful it must feel to still be alive but melting away.

 

[Bifferwine]

Sounds like I need to invest the $20 for the meter. Now I have the task of "euthanizing" the poor star. I don't want him to suffer. How awful it must feel to still be alive but melting away.

My Ace Hardware has them for sale for around $8, so you can find them cheaper.

I'm not sure if the stars really "feel" the pain, as we would. I always held out hope that mine would get better, so I left them in, and they didn't.