Blasto Problem

[Fishy1]

I am writing this for my daugther.....she has a beautiful colony of blastomussa wellsi that for the past three month as been doing great even producing babies. The adult polyps expand to almost three inches. In the last four days they have failed to expand and have lightened considerably in color. She's tested all parameters and can find nothing wrong there.....what could it be? To have a colony go from doing outstanding to this is surprising and has left her wondering whats wrong. Also, one of the babies has almost turned white. She did lugol's did it today but is wondering what else she can do or if anyone else has had this happen and can shed some light as to whats going on. Thanks for any information or comments.

Fishy1

[zeppelin]

It is not unheard of for blastos to do this. Some die after a few months for no known reason at all. Might try shading it a bit and see if that helps.

[Fishy1]

Thanks for the suggestion, I'll let her know

[raskal311]

I head that if you dont feed them they die within a year.

[Fishy1]

She feeds her tank frozen cyclopeeze......hope that is enough

[WendyMc]

I read that they actually need spot feeding w/chunkier seafood (mysis, or chopped bits of krill etc.) I don't have any yet, but I've been researching before I purchase my 1st frag. If anyone knows any different, please correct me. I have seen pics of them eating pieces as large as about 1/4". I have also read about them recovering from what appeared to be total death when shaded heavily.

[Fishy1]

Thanks for the feeding tip..........I'll pass it on

[Kirklan]

Had my blasto for about 6-8 months looking great, even growing. All of a sudden a few heads started to die off and not extending. It's still alive, but has been looking pretty sick for the last 6 months. I think I may try more direct feedings.

[john76]

I'm starting to hate my blastos because of this.... so far I've completely lost this one....



And I have one polyp growing back of this one...



No explanation for it....

[reefinallday]

direct feed is necessary i would say once a month to keep them happy

[Fishy1]

Maybe this trouble is more wide spread than we realized......I brought my daughter's colony home with me and have put it in a shady area in my anemone tank........last ditch effort to save it. We'll see what happens over the next few days..................

fishy1

[Jus Reefin]

This is a well known issue with Blasto's! I have had over 10+ coloines of Wellsi and none of them ever feed. I have placed food right on the oral disk and they never seem to eat it. How does evryone feed there's? This could be a really good topic for discussion. These are one of my favorite corals and if I could figure out a way to have them survive longer then a year I would have a tank full of them!

[john76]

Mine eat mysis like every 3-4 days.

Here's some pics of it...

[Jus Reefin]

I will try to feed mine again. it's been 2-3 months since last I tried. Maybe now since my other LPS get fed regularly the blasto's will eat as well. Looks like you would have to turn all the pumps off since they have no feeders for the food to stick to.

[john76]

Yea. I cut off all the flow... pumps, powerheads etc... Otherwise it would just get kicked up in the current.

[mothra]

John - you 2nd picture is the explanation for the one in the post above it. Cleaner shrimp and blastos don't mix, especially if you target feed!

[john76]

The shrimp has been long gone.

[macDRE]

how much do you feed?do you feed every polyp?cause i have about 18 little polyp heads

[yvonne r.]

Blastos do have feeder tentacles to catch and hold food with, they use them to pass food to the mouth. But they are on the outer perimeter, if you look at them close up you'll notice the tentacles ( when they are fully open) . So if you put food in the center on the oral disk it will just float away. I like to feed mine brine shrimp, mysis and salmon, preferably every other day or atleast twice a week. If they dont look happy I move them to a slower flow and less light. It sounds like your daughters colony needs less light and more food. I've seen perfectly healthy blastos start to die because they could not tolerate even a moderate flow and then perk up when put in a very slow flow.

[dpstrand]

So if I have a cleaner shrimp I should not have blastos?

[john76]

The shrimp will actually steal the food right out of the mouth. This will stress the coral but it may tolerate it. I got rid of my shrimp because I got sick of chasing it away.

[Fishy1]

Update......the colony looked a bit better yesterday. I tried to feed them meaty food but it just floated off.......tentacles were not there. Instead I heavily basted them with frozen cyclopeeze and put a little plastic dome over them to keep the cleaner shrimp away. Later I made a pop bottle trap for the cleaner shrimp and got him out. He was banished to a 10 gallon mushroom tank and became roomates with a citron goby I think some of the blasto polyps may have eaten a little cyclops, not sure. I'm just hoping they recover.......

fishy1

[WendyMc]

Sounds like you're off to a good start. Keep us updated. I'm really interested in how this colony turns out. Did you turn off all current in the tank when you tried the meaty foods?

[Fishy1]

No, I didn't, but I knew before I even tried that the polyps weren't extended enough to even try......the cyclopeeze seemed to stick better around the mouth areas .........the plastic dome kept the current and cleaner shrimp at bay

[icu2]

I was feeding mine mysis and they started dying. So, I quit and now there are babies. I could have been overfeeding, but who knows. a rather touchy coral this one.