Fromia milleporella Breeding Guide: Marble Star Spawning
The marble sea star is a broadcast-spawning asteroid whose planktonic larval cycle is not reproduced in home aquaria.
Overview
Fromia milleporella, the marble sea star, is the type species of the genus Fromia (established by Gray in 1840), family Goniasteridae. It is a small red sea star with black spots, distributed across the Indo-Pacific. Fromia are tropical five-armed stars, occasionally with more arms, and several species are hard to tell apart.
Reproductive Mode
Like most asteroids, Fromia milleporella is a gonochoric broadcast spawner. Detailed species-specific spawning data are scarce, so reproduction is described from the general starfish pattern, which applies to the family.
Sexual Reproduction
In free spawning, buoyant eggs and sperm are released into the water and the resulting embryos and larvae live as plankton. They pass through bilaterally symmetrical bipinnaria and then brachiolaria stages before settling on the seabed and metamorphosing into pentaradial juveniles up to about 1 mm across.
Common Challenges
This planktonic cycle cannot be completed in home aquaria, which lack the open-water dispersal and larval microfood required. No documented asexual reproduction is recorded for this species, so it is not propagated by fragmentation either. Husbandry itself is demanding: it needs slow drip acclimation and a mature tank.