Blasto question for old time reef keepers

SPStoner · #1 07/12/2005, 09:23 PM

I've just recently delved back into the LPS side of the hobby after a rather long hiatus. With the recent surge in popularity of Blastomussa Wellsi, I noticed that while the BW's I see are much more colorful than what was coming in 5 or 6 years ago, they seem to be much smaller. I don't mean just the colony, but the individual polyps. I have 3 small colonies and have seen dozens more on websites and in LFS across the country, and I don't think I've seen one yet that has polyps larger than an inch or so. Back in the day, you'd see B. Wellsi's with some polyps over 2", sometimes close to 3"!!!

This picture was taken about 2 years ago in a friends tank. There's nothing in it to really give a sense of scale, but the colony on the left was about 4-5" in diameter and the right one was around 7".

So, is it just me, or are they actually smaller now?

downset · #2 07/12/2005, 09:50 PM

I only know of 1 that has huge poylps but they are easily 4" or so.
I havent seen any like that for sale in a long long time

Typo · #3 07/12/2005, 11:23 PM

mine in my tank are about 2 1/2 inch polyps. when i got them 8 months ago they were tiny. i think it just takes time in a tank to grow. my girlfriend bought some the other day and the polyps are about 2 inches.

dieselab · #4 07/13/2005, 12:36 AM

polyps are easily between 3-4". wierd that out of all my blasto, these are the only large ones.

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SPStoner · #5 07/13/2005, 06:29 AM

Typo and Dieselab-

Are they just large when inflated, in other words, if you touch the polyps to close them up, do they shrink down to 1/2" diameter, or are there just some "jumbo" blastos out there?

TIA

ctxmonitor · #6 07/13/2005, 10:30 AM

I think it might got something to do with the tank itself. The amount of nutritionin the water column is very important I think..

Here is my blasto that is getting very big.. You can't see the mouth but its in the center of the front polyp.

I would say its around 3" in size.

SPStoner · #7 07/13/2005, 10:52 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by ctxmonitor
I think it might got something to do with the tank itself. The amount of nutritionin the water column is very important I think..

Interesting. The tank I posted above was a BB tank filtered by an early prototype of Leng Sy's Ecosystem. At the time of the picture, the tank had been running for about 5 years with no skimmer or carbon, just the miracle mud bed filter with macro growing. The water always had a yellow tint to it and I always got the impression that it had a fairly high nutrient load.

So are you saying that the low nutrient systems many of us are running may in fact be detrimental to some of these corals?

xdusty6920 · #8 07/13/2005, 10:45 PM

i actually have a colony of the purple b. wellsi's on the left. they have massive polyps. 3x-4x bigger then all the rest of my blasto colonys. i think there may be some kind of difference in species. like when micros were acans. and it was realized there were "subspecies" that werent exactly the same. there is deffinently a note worthy difference in scale.

dieselab · #9 07/13/2005, 10:55 PM

i totally agree with xdusty theory on "subspecies". all we have to do is find out which group it is.

InsaneClownFish · #10 07/20/2005, 06:24 PM

Pretty Blastos guys..

64Ivy · #11 07/20/2005, 07:16 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by SPStoner
So are you saying that the low nutrient systems many of us are running may in fact be detrimental to some of these corals?

I believe that. And until someone can come up with a better answer, I think this may be part of the problem with Elegance corals too. However, I haven't really noticed much of a size difference in Wellsi polyps lately. Perhaps the coral is just being collected from a wider variety of places with could mean there are more variences all around than there used to be. They sure still are purdy though.

InsaneClownFish · #12 07/20/2005, 10:50 PM

64Ivy did you move your 500 to CT???

Have you been aquainted with our club here in CT...CTARS?

64Ivy · #13 07/21/2005, 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by InsaneClownFish

64Ivy did you move your 500 to CT???

Have you been aquainted with our club here in CT...CTARS?

My 500 has always been in CT. And in regards to CTARS; I believe I attended a meeting a few years ago that was held at Reef & Fin's old location and discussed photography a little bit. But in all honesty, my schedule makes it difficult to actively participate in most club functions so rather than dissapoint anyone, I simply hold off on joining. Should things ever slow down however, I would love to. By the way, the tank is usually available for viewing whenever I'm in town though so whoever wants to drop me a PM I'm sure we can arrange something.