Sand Sifting Star losing legs

I bought a SSS about 8 months ago and it was fine up until a month ago. At that point portions of it's legs started turning white and falling off. Its down to 2 full length legs and three stumps. I also have a tiger serpent star but its legs are fine. Has anyone heard of this before? Anther question is what would cause black dots, as well as something that looks like mold, to form on a scarlet cleaner shrimp? After my SCS molted three months ago this stuff showed up, and after each molt these "marking" showed back up. Then this morning I found that my SCS had molted again, but this time The Molted skin and SCS itself were stuck to my power head :-X, just wondered if the power head may have been to strong for the shrimps fragile new exo or if these spots could have part of the cause?

Thanks for any advice or experiences that you may have had with these items.

 

I think know what happened to the SCS because last night I saw one of my camel shrimp in my banggai cardinal's mouth. The Banggai cardinal could be the culprit!!!

 

Yup, they do eat shrimp

 

My sand sifting star did the same thing. They starve in most tanks. Calfo told me you need a 200 gallon for those things.

 

I hope that my fire shrimp doesn't end up in its belly!

I wish I would known that the Sand Sifting Star needed that much "acreage" before I got.

Thanks for the comments!

 

Is there any good (reef-safe) star to have? I like the idea behind them but have been reluctant due to the fear of loosing all my little "critters."

 

well...i have heard that the sss need a bigger tank, but mine has been in my 55 for 2 years and he seems fine 2 me, i feed him once a week just 2 make sure

 

What do you feed your SSS? I tried to feed mine frozen mysis and flakes but it just crawled away. The tiger serpent comes charging after any food (ie. flakes, brine shrimp, mysis, plankton, you name it) always seems hungry!

 

i fed it either the seaweed selects or formula 2 flakes, but its hard to figure out when hes hungry

 

Thanks I'll try those to see if I can bring my SSS back around.