Red starfish feeding

[casey chenier]

Have had this starfish for a year. It shuns anything I give shrimp, krill, mysis, reef roids, spirulina. Can anyone help with what it eats! I've only ever seen it eat asterina white starfish.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Fromia stars are carnivores and feed on bits of algae, clam meat, shrimp meat, oysters, snails, worms, mussels, sponges and zooplankton BUT . . . will and may eat some polyps

 

[casey chenier]

Fromia stars are carnivores and feed on bits of algae, clam meat, shrimp meat, oysters, snails, worms, mussels, sponges and zooplankton BUT . . . will and may eat some polyps

Mine thinks krill are yuck and moves off them. I've only seen it eat asterina.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Mine thinks krill are yuck and moves off them. I've only seen it eat asterina.

Yep - starfish, snails and other inverts part of diet

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Fromia starfish are thought to be biofilm eaters in the wild. We, unfortunately, cannot replicate biofilms in our tanks, and most biofilm feeding starfish die after ~8-13 months, presumably from starvation.

Many biofilm eating starfish (such as Linckias, Fromias, and Nardoas) eat "Asterinas" (technically Aquilonastras), sponges, and tunicates - I presume this is to get at biofilms/bacteria (and other microbes) associated with these organisms, as at least some Aquilonastra species are thought to be biofilm feeders, (so they would presumably have biofilm fragments/scents in/on them), and sponges and tunicates are basically bacterial sinks (so they're basically rough approximations of a biofilm).

So, Aquilonastra stars (which I'd suggest you intentionally farm somewhere outside of the DT so your star can't hunt them to extinction) are the best food source I know of at the moment for biofilm eating starfish; some sponges and tunicates may be accepted too, but these (outside of a few highly invasive varieties) are hard to keep to alive, let alone grow enough to use as a food source.

With Fromias specifically, livinlifeinBKK on the forum here has had some success by target feeding them with some meaty foods, but they weren't able to see how the diet worked out in the long run, and IIRC the diet was only accepted by some Fromia species. If you want to try feeding meaty foods, then things like clams, oysters, and mussels are a good place to start, and masstick may be a good option too. No guarantees the star will eat them, and no guarantees it would derive any nutrition from them even if it did eat them (i.e. it could still starve even if it ate a ton of food if the food doesn't meet its nutritional needs), but they may be worth a shot.

As is, farming Aquilonastras would be my suggestion.