Marble Sea Star (Fromia milleporella) Care Guide
Fromia milleporella is a red Indo-Pacific sea star with black pores, intolerant of sudden water changes and dependent on a mature, algae-rich tank.
Compiled by Aquairi from published sources · Published · Updated
Overview
Fromia milleporella is a sea star of the family Goniasteridae, displaying various shades of red, which gives it the common names red starfish or black-spotted starfish. It is smaller and somewhat hardier than Linckia, but remains demanding because it depends on naturally occurring biofilm and is intolerant of sudden changes in water chemistry.
Taxonomy
- Class: Asteroidea
- Order: Valvatida
- Family: Goniasteridae
- Genus: Fromia
- Scientific name: Fromia milleporella
- Authority: (Lamarck, 1816)
Habitat
The species ranges throughout the Indo-West Pacific, from Madagascar to the Red Sea, including the Maldives, Sri Lanka, the Bay of Bengal, the East Indies, northern Australia, the Philippines, China, southern Japan, and the South Pacific. It is recorded at depths from 0 to 73 metres.
Tank requirements
- Minimum tank volume: 150 L
- Temperature: 24-26 °C (75-79 °F)
- pH: 8.1-8.4
- Salinity: 1.024-1.026 SG
- dKH: 8-11
- Size: 5-10 cm in diameter
- Lifespan: 4-8 years
- Acclimation: slow drip acclimation required
Diet
In aquaria the species feeds on thin layers of algae and requires a well-established system to survive. It shows little dietary flexibility, so supplemental feeding is largely ineffective and only a mature tank with abundant film algae and detritus can support it.
Compatibility
Peaceful and reef-safe with fish. Harlequin shrimp prey on sea stars and should not be kept with Fromia.
Fromia milleporella Breeding Guide: Marble Star Spawning
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.