Anyone have their blasto die for no reason?

ezcompany · #1 03/01/2007, 07:33 PM

I was wondering if this was characteristic for all blastos. I've had quite a few different colors. they grow new baby heads, look fantastic even without feeding, then disappear and die in 2 weeks. water conditions the same, etc. are all of them like this?? for the record they have been fed every once in awhile.

Illuminati · #2 03/01/2007, 09:06 PM

At one time I had 6, now down to 2 and that will be one after I trade off one of the last ones I have.

Damn cranky coral, perfect one second dying the next and getting them back to health is a chore.

I heard you can mount them vertically and thought I'd try it (On my favorite piece no less), yeah that didn't work.

No more welsi's for me ever again, the only reason I'm keeping the one is because it's teal colored and I got it in my last shipment from Ultimate frags.

tankfly · #3 03/01/2007, 10:00 PM

I bought a B. wellsi (red with a little green) at a LFS about 3 years ago. After a few months I put it in a tank that I have at the elementary school where my wife works. The coral is in amazing health. It has new polyps all around the edges. It is low in the tank and near one end so it gets relatively low light. It is also on a kind of flat rock so not on the sand bed. The tank is a 55 gal with only one 3 ft strip of VHO actinic whites and one 3 ft strip of NO actinic.

Since I bought it I have tried other colonies and all died. Go figure.

john76 · #4 03/02/2007, 08:59 AM

They are fickle... if you do a search there's a bunch of threads n this. As much as I like them I won't be buying anymore(unless I see a really nice one

). They could be doing well for a while and then start to recede.

I've had some that I bought while near death and nursed them back. Then others that were completely healthy start to decline.

Peter Eichler · #5 03/02/2007, 03:59 PM

They tend to like lower light levels and not a lot of flow which is the complete opposite of what many of our reefs tanks are like.

apex003 · #6 03/02/2007, 04:23 PM

Yeah this happened to my nice blasto frag. Had it >1 year, looked great, growing a new head. Then, no change in tank, polyps start receding and then gone completely despite still taking food. ??? No more blastos for me I don't think...

Peter Eichler · #7 03/03/2007, 01:19 AM

I can't tell you how much money you guys have saved me. I got the blasto bug over the last couple weeks and was intending to seek out some rare colorations to add to my mixed reef. I knew some of the issues surrounding them but was going to give it a go anyhow. I'm just going to skip it now and blow some more money on SPS, Acans, and Palys. Wait, you guys didn't save me any money at all... I hate you!

Tyke · #8 03/03/2007, 10:18 AM

I'm done with blastos too after experiencing the same thing a few times. I'm convinced it has something to do with metal halide lighting over the long haul. I think a lot of blastos, even though they seem to thrive in the short term, deteriorate over the course of months or even a few years until they receed into nothingness under MH. I've never been able to keep blastos under my MH for more than a couple years at the most. They do survive in my refugium lit by PC, however they grow and multiply at an extremely slow rate. I've saved many that started to receed simply by moving them into the fuge. Interestingly, my MH is not at all intense - 1 250 watt 15K XM over a 36" x 18" x 20" tank, flanked by 2 96 watt actinic PC's and there are plenty of shady spots in the tank. The fuge is a 40 gallon breeder tank with 2 96 watt PC's. I think current is over rated as a limiting factor in blasto health specifically and with most LPS in general as long as it's not so strong that it damages flesh. The problems I've had with unexplained die offs were with Wellsis for the most part. I've had much better success with Merlettis although they are not exactly problem free either. Something to think about - how many huge blasto colonies have you seen? I could be wrong but I don't remember ever seeing one?? I'd love to see a pic of large colony if anyone has one.

ezcompany · #9 03/06/2007, 02:17 PM

tyke, i dont think mh has much to do with it. my blastos were doing crappy under my 40 watt pcs, so i moved them to the halides. they thrived for a few months there. then started receding. then i moved them back to the 40 watt and they died "slower" over there, but died anyways.