farewell, patrick the star!

It's a sad day here. Our starfish, Patrick, has died. He's appeared sick for a while, and we got some tips on feeding him the other day so had hopes that he would start feeling better. Then last night we noticed he had been attacked. Brutally. We're not sure if it's the damn bristle worm that's hiding in there, or if it was the crabs, or a combination - but it wasn't pretty! One of his legs was pretty much detached, he had what looked like bites all on the underside of him, and one of his tentacles was missing the tip, which was lying on the bottom of the tank. I wanted to cry when I saw him because he just looked so bad!

We put him into a glass container, covered by a nylon stocking, so that he was completely separated from the rest of the critters, hoping that would give him a chance to recover. Not so. This morning he was all folded over on himself and looked like he was beginning to dissolve - so we had to flush him. It was a sad moment. Another of his tentacles was almost detached as well, so maybe it wasn't another creature that did it the first time. Who knows?

It's a very sad and puzzling situation. Poor Patrick. When we thought it was the worm, then there was a least a chance to dig it out of there and get rid of it, get some revenge. But now I'm not at all sure what it was that caused it. And I want revenge! Watching him die like that was not cool in the slightest...

But life goes on, at least for the rest of us. We'll do a good cleanout of the tank, see if we can at least find that worm and get rid of it, and eventually get another starfish. Hopefully, we'll have better luck next time!