Lamprometra palmata Featherstar Crinoid Care Guide
Lamprometra palmata is a featherstar crinoid (an echinoderm, not a coral), a demanding filter feeder with very poor captive survival.
Compiled by Aquairi from published sources · Published · Updated
Overview
Lamprometra palmata is a featherstar, a crinoid of the family Mariametridae. Crinoids are echinoderms rather than corals, but they are kept by some reef aquarists as non-photosynthetic filter feeders. The species is notoriously difficult: it captures plankton with its feathery arms and almost always starves in captivity, so it is regarded as an expert-only animal.
Taxonomy
- Family: Mariametridae
- Genus: Lamprometra
- Scientific name: Lamprometra palmata
- WoRMS revision: now treated as a synonym of Dichrometra palmata (Müller, 1841)
- Common names: Featherstar, Crinoid
Habitat
The species comes from the Indo-Pacific, where it lives in fast, often shallow water. It perches on sea fans, rocks and other structures and extends its arms into the current to capture suspended food. It is mobile and can relocate within the reef.
Tank requirements
- Salinity: 1.024–1.026 SG
- Temperature: 24–26 °C (75–79 °F)
- pH: 8.1–8.4
- dKH (alkalinity): 8–11
- Calcium: 400–450 ppm
- Magnesium: 1280–1350 ppm
- Nitrate: below 20 ppm; phosphate below 0.15 ppm
- Lighting: low (0–50 PAR); not light-dependent
- Flow: high
- Minimum tank age: about 1 year, very stable parameters
Feeding
As a filter feeder it relies on small planktonic food, with reports citing zooplankton around 400 microns in size, fed many times a day. Matching the right food size and nutrition is the central difficulty. Heavy continuous feeding combined with pristine, stable water is required, which is hard to sustain.
Survival in captivity
Captive survival is very low; feather stars usually starve slowly over weeks to months. Long-term success is exceptional and has been reported only in heavily fed, dedicated non-photosynthetic systems. For these reasons it is not recommended for general reef tanks.
Lamprometra palmata (Featherstar Crinoid): Propagation Guide
Overview
Lamprometra palmata is a featherstar crinoid. Crinoids belong to the class Crinoidea and are echinoderms, not corals; they are related to starfish, brittle stars, sea urchins and sea cucumbers. Unstalked feather stars (comatulids) carry feather-like arms supported by articulating ossicles and bearing smaller jointed appendages called pinnules, giving the animal its plumed appearance, with the mouth on the upper surface.
It is grouped with non-photosynthetic, filter-feeding aquarium animals because, like NPS corals, it must capture suspended food rather than rely on light. Crinoids are passive filter feeders, using their arms and sticky mucus to trap plankton and small particles of detritus, with cilia then moving the food toward the mouth.
Reproductive Mode
Crinoids reproduce sexually through broadcast spawning: the pinnules eventually rupture to release sperm and eggs into the seawater, where fertilisation and larval development occur. This open-water spawning is difficult to trigger or support in a home aquarium, especially for an animal that struggles simply to feed itself.
Fragging / Asexual Propagation
Crinoids cannot reproduce asexually through fragmentation. They are, however, capable of regenerating lost body parts: arms torn off by predators can regrow, and even the visceral mass can regenerate. Regeneration repairs an individual but does not create new animals, so there is no fragging route comparable to cutting a coral colony. The honest position is that this species is not propagated in captivity.
Common Challenges
The central challenge is nutrition: a captive featherstar needs near-constant fine particulate food in strong flow, conditions that are hard to maintain, and survival is rare. Because reproduction is by open-water spawning and the animal regenerates rather than fragments, there is no practical home propagation method, and the species is best regarded as one to leave in the wild.