Serpent Star "torn up"?

My serpent star was looking fine twelve hours ago. He did have white splotches and I thought something was wrong, but I didn't think itd be this urgent. I turned the lights on twelve minutes ago. The only problem I've found in my water chemistry is that the salt levels were high. Can anyone help me find the cause? I don't want it affecting anything else...


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I am here: http://maps.google.com/maps?ll=26.193247,-81.725839

 

how long have you had the serpent star? how long has the tank been set up? do you have any predators in the tank that could have caused this?

 

I've had the tank set up since December. And I got the starfish sometime in january. The other occupants are as follows: yellow flanked fairy wrasse, small hippo tang, 2x orcelaris clownfish, starry blenny, cleaner shrimp, peppermint shrimp, horseshoe crab, two turbo snails, halloween hermit, and four nassarius snails. Pretty docile.

 

bizarre... the one thing that will cause a sea star to disintegrate quickly is a sharp change in salinity... have you done anything to change salinity in your tank recently?

 

Nothing to change it. I think last week the level read 1.030. Which is too high. I also found a dead turbo snail in the same tank... Maybe it's just a coincidence. I have a 5 gallon bottle of fresh water cooling to room temperature as we speak. Hopefully it'll stabilize the salinity. What's really sad is that the star is still alive... I feel bad for it.