Advice on Blastos

[erock68]

I just can't get them to grow....

I am on my 3rd frag and no matter what I try, they just wither away. Seems like no matter where I place them, they just won't grow. I bought a frag, at a swap about 7 months ago, and the Blastos are now booger size. Not dead, just very, very small.

I have all sorts of SPS, a White Leather, Palys & Zoas, 3 Nems. All are doing great. Zoas and Palys grow like weeds - no problems there.

I have a 6 lamp, T5 fixture and 3 Hydor Korelia powerheads. Currently running only GFO. 10g water change, every weekend on a 75g with 30g sump.

All params are in check.

Should I just chalk this up as a coral I shouldn't keep? Can someone advise on placement?

 

[Tweaked]

Try to get your hands on aquacultured fragments. You'll be happy :thumbsup:

 

[kurt_n]

Low flow, low light. Have you tried that placement yet?

 

[kjboggs]

Feed them. Once I started to feed mine mysis and pellets weekly started growing good and sprouting new heads.

 

[_divad]

Once I started feeding mine they grew like weeds. Both with wellsi and merletii. I have found that with mine if they are on a rock and don't have new rock to grow onto, then they slow down with the growth. If I take a chunk of them off of the rock they grow back pretty quick.

 

[lafayettereefer]

I found feeding mine mysis was the key to good growth.

 

[erock68]

I recently put them, on a smaller frag plug and moved them all the way, to the right hand side of the tank About half way down:




This is when the first bank of T5's came on. Will get a better picture later today:

 

[Crush Coral]

I would move them to the bottom of the tank with enough flow to make them wabble. Feed them daily with all the flow off for 20 mins. If I do not feed mine they start to shrink.

 

[kitkat717]

How do you feed them? Mine won't grab the mysis when I touch it to them.

My blasto is on the opposite side of the tank from the mp10 and a little shielded around the corner of the rock it's stuck on. It's about 1/3 of the way up from the sand. Has grown by about 1/3 in 3 or 4 weeks, but was pretty unhappy for the first week. I started it on the sand bed and moved it up when it seemed to be more happy. Dunno if that helps.

 

[triggreef]

I've had pretty miserable luck as well. It seems like the prettier they are the faster they deteriorate. The only good luck I have had so far is with a green one, the regular reg/green, some merletti, and a very nice designer one that I watched at the LFS for about 2 months prior to buying it. I tried low flow low lights for all of them.

I also found the LFS to be keeping them in only about 80 par, which I can really only get if I put it half under a rock. lol

 

[xroads]

Low to medium light, low to medium flow.

They do like a little dirtier water, so if you have really clean SPS water, that may be the problem.

More fish, more fish poop