new marbled sea star

ophiura

Active Member
Its a Fromia. Large tank, Loads and loads of LR. Long acclimations. Most Fromia I see in the hobby seem to melt within a week or so from poor acclimation. Quite possibly more difficult than even the blue Linckia to keep long term. Diet is thought to be more along the lines of sponge.
Pretty pictures for sure though.
 

natep206

Member
i know some one that colects loads of sponge from florida for his morish idol. he freezes it and feed it to the idol. i could probly get a bunch of it from him! and spot feed my star. would this work?
thanks
nate
 

ophiura

Active Member
Maybe, maybe not. Anything is worth a try I suppose. But since this is an indo pacific species and they are often pretty specialized, it is hard to know. If you can keep it alive for 18 months then maybe....
 

natep206

Member
well im definatly going to try and get some from that guy. and is there any kind of sponge i could get that is indo-pacific. like red ball sponge, bread crum sponge or orange frilly sponge? id its big enough would that be a good diet for it?
thanks
nate
 

natep206

Member
i can get a huge red ball sponge if that would be good. it is indo-pacific and it would feed the star for a long time would this work? thanks nate
 

jawfish101

Member
Ophiura, How long should you acclimate stars? This is just out of curiosity, I dont have enough rock for one myself.
Thanks!
 

ophiura

Active Member
Several hours at least, depending on the specific gravity at the LFS (and you should never buy a star from the LFS without knowing the specific gravity and how they acclimate). If their specific gravity is lower than 1.024, then I wouldn't even consider it unless the star had been in their tanks at least a month.
There is a reason such a beautiful star is not more commonly seen in the hobby.
These tend to be very specific on what kind of sponges they feed on and I would doubt that the larger sponges would work. May be worth a try, but I suspect they are feeding on encrusting types of sponges on the rocks and other things. Their specific diet is very poorly known even to scientists.
 

natep206

Member
when a sea star is melting down dose it look like clear stuff comes out of there pores?
if so mine is melting down as we speak
thanks
nate
 

alyssia

Active Member
I have never had one melt, but they can also look like they are falling apart, be all twisted up, and/or have white stringy looking stuff coming out of them.
How long did you acclimate it, and how long did the lfs acclimate it?
 
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