Blasto needs help!

[MatAndPatti]

We're pretty new to reefkeeping, so please forgive the stupid questions...

Our new 40 has been cycling about 2 months now. Just picked up a bunch of small frags at a local swap so we decided to start stocking it. Parameters:
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5.0ppm
Phosphate 0.5ppm
pH 7.95
SG 1.027

We got everything home and dipped in Coral Rx. All the vendors there were extremely reputable shops, but I figured dipping wouldn't hurt.

Tonight this one blasto we picked up is not looking so good... Actually has quite a bit of skeletal structure showing, so I don't know if it's a goner or not.

Right now it's on the bottom of the tank in a moderate flow area. We're running a Maxspect Razor, but it only ramps to 20% on both channels, so I don't think it's a lighting issue.

Is there any helping this guy out?

Any thoughts on what we might have done wrong? In hindsight, transport in the little plastic cup provided might not have been as gentle as it could have been.

Luckily nothing we picked up was particularly expensive (but of course this one was our favorite), but I still don't like to have stuff die. We'd like to understand what we might have done wrong so we can not make the same mistake again!

Thanks for any help!

 

[Newsmyrna80]

How long was it from when you picked up the frag to the picture being taken? How did you acclimate? Your salinity is a little high and depending on what the LFS water was this could have been a little bit of a shock to the coral. But I don't think that is the problem. What kind of lighting was the LFS running on this coral?
It could be as simple as the tank is too young. When I first got into the hobby I tried hammers and frogspawns and within weeks they were showing their skeletons. That's not a problem anymore:celeb2: I also feed my LPSs.

 

[Tweaked]

That tank looks like yesterday new!

 

[MatAndPatti]

How long was it from when you picked up the frag to the picture being taken? How did you acclimate? Your salinity is a little high and depending on what the LFS water was this could have been a little bit of a shock to the coral. But I don't think that is the problem. What kind of lighting was the LFS running on this coral?
It could be as simple as the tank is too young. When I first got into the hobby I tried hammers and frogspawns and within weeks they were showing their skeletons. That's not a problem anymore:celeb2: I also feed my LPSs.

That was only about 36 hours after we picked it up. My wife actually thinks that it may have looked not so good as soon as we put it into the tank, which was only a couple of hours after we picked it up. I thought it was just retracted a bit, so didn't look at it too closely at the time.

I was under the impression that corals in general did not need to be acclimated. :facepalm: Maybe that was our mistake? I did check the salinity of the shipping water and it was a little lower (1.025 I think) but I figured it was close enough. They went into Coral Rx, into a rinse, and then into the tank. Was that not a good idea?

How fragile are LPS's? I didn't drop them or sit on them or anything like that, but when I put them into the dip and rinse containers, I just let the plugs roll around on their sides, so in the process they may have bumped into the sides of the container a bit. Could that have damaged the tissue?

We got them at a swap, so the temporary lighting there was LED, but I am assuming they were under LED at the LFS they came from, given what I know about the shop. All of the frags are sitting on the bottom, and I've only got the LEDs on 20% max right now, so hopefully that's not an issue.

Picking up some frozen mysis tonight to see if we can get anything to eat a bit... Any other suggestions?

Thanks for your help!

 

[MatAndPatti]

That tank looks like yesterday new!

Yeah, we started with BRS reefsaver rock and bacterial additives, plus some live rock rubble from our LFS, so everything still looks very clean. Aside from a diatom bloom early on when I was running the lights when I didn't need to, we haven't had much to deal with... yet...

 

[Newsmyrna80]

That was only about 36 hours after we picked it up. My wife actually thinks that it may have looked not so good as soon as we put it into the tank, which was only a couple of hours after we picked it up. I thought it was just retracted a bit, so didn't look at it too closely at the time.

I was under the impression that corals in general did not need to be acclimated. :facepalm: Maybe that was our mistake? I did check the salinity of the shipping water and it was a little lower (1.025 I think) but I figured it was close enough. They went into Coral Rx, into a rinse, and then into the tank. Was that not a good idea?

How fragile are LPS's? I didn't drop them or sit on them or anything like that, but when I put them into the dip and rinse containers, I just let the plugs roll around on their sides, so in the process they may have bumped into the sides of the container a bit. Could that have damaged the tissue?

We got them at a swap, so the temporary lighting there was LED, but I am assuming they were under LED at the LFS they came from, given what I know about the shop. All of the frags are sitting on the bottom, and I've only got the LEDs on 20% max right now, so hopefully that's not an issue.

Picking up some frozen mysis tonight to see if we can get anything to eat a bit... Any other suggestions?

Thanks for your help!

IME corals are not so delicate that a bump against a container will kill them. I've done it:bigeyes: Again, I don't think the salinity would have resulted in skeleton appearing. My LFS doesn't acclimate corals and they do just fine. It could be a combination of everything stressing him out as well as the tank being very new and thereby not having nutrients in the water. Are there any fish in the tank?

 

[tanked_life]

+1 on the reef being too new. Since it is doo new, i would start feeding your corals to supplement the nutrients they would receive in an established reef tank. Feed then phytoplankton or oyster feast with a combination of myso shrimp and micro fauna marine lps pellets. Be careful to not feed them too much as the food that isnt digested can rot and cause necrosis of the coral.

Best,

Elio

 

[MatAndPatti]

IME corals are not so delicate that a bump against a container will kill them. I've done it:bigeyes: Again, I don't think the salinity would have resulted in skeleton appearing. My LFS doesn't acclimate corals and they do just fine. It could be a combination of everything stressing him out as well as the tank being very new and thereby not having nutrients in the water. Are there any fish in the tank?

Thanks for your help! :thumbsup: Nope, no fish yet. I figured corals might be a little bit more robust... maybe not! :headwallblue:

I forgot to mention earlier, as we've been adding the bacterial starter, we've also been ghost feeding, at least through our cycling.

Tonight we fed some mysis that some of the frags seemed to do a pretty good job with. Tomorrow we go to the LFS (they were closed today) to see what other foods we can get ahold of!

 

[MatAndPatti]

+1 on the reef being too new. Since it is doo new, i would start feeding your corals to supplement the nutrients they would receive in an established reef tank. Feed then phytoplankton or oyster feast with a combination of myso shrimp and micro fauna marine lps pellets. Be careful to not feed them too much as the food that isnt digested can rot and cause necrosis of the coral.

Best,

Elio

Thanks for the info! :thumbsup: When you say too much, how much is too much? Some of the polyps we fed made the whole mysis disappear. Some, maybe only half of the shrimp was gone sticking out. Should we try to remove anything that's still visible in the morning?

Also, how often should we be feeding? Heading to the saltwater LFS tomorrow so we'll be able to get ahold of some additional foods. All the local PetSmart had was frozen mysis.

Thanks!

 

[tanked_life]

Thanks for the info! :thumbsup: When you say too much, how much is too much? Some of the polyps we fed made the whole mysis disappear. Some, maybe only half of the shrimp was gone sticking out. Should we try to remove anything that's still visible in the morning?

Also, how often should we be feeding? Heading to the saltwater LFS tomorrow so we'll be able to get ahold of some additional foods. All the local PetSmart had was frozen mysis.

Thanks!

It all depends on what food you feed them. For example, the pellets you want to feed them once or twice a week, same thing with the phytofeast/ousterfeast. And if you are feeding your fish myso shrimp, you dont have to directly target feed the coral unless you arent using the previous foods as mentioned and if that is the case then omce again target feed once to twice a week. And odds are the coral wont leave food on them over night because theyre slime coat will eventually drag the food into its mouth. They dont only use tentacles to feed, theyre tentacles get food into theyre mouth faster but so does theyre slime coat which we cant really see.

Best,

Elio

 

[scooter31707]

I don't know if this is true or not, but I have read and heard on some occasions that LPS does not accept to Coral Rx Dip, being too strong for them. I would just leave it there a couple of days and see what it does.

 

[MatAndPatti]

Thanks for the help folks! We got some good info from our LFS tonight, so I think we're on the right track. Sounds like blasto's like the one we got are tough and sometimes it's even hit or miss when they get them from their suppliers.

So far so good with the other things we got, so keeping our fingers crossed...:rollface:

 

[Daniel62]

I have blastos as well. I am finding that the single head polyps, don't seem to do very well. I think that cutting them damages their tissue. Now I only buy full colonies, more expensive ,but I have only lost 1 colony as compared to a bunch of single polyps

 

[MatAndPatti]

I have blastos as well. I am finding that the single head polyps, don't seem to do very well. I think that cutting them damages their tissue. Now I only buy full colonies, more expensive ,but I have only lost 1 colony as compared to a bunch of single polyps

Hmmm... good to know! I will keep that in mind the next time we're looking for a blasto. I'm starting to feel like we didn't necessarily do anything "wrong" with it, so that makes me feel a little better. So far so good with the other frags we got!

Thanks!

 

[VoiceInTheDeser]

I have blastos as well. I am finding that the single head polyps, don't seem to do very well. I think that cutting them damages their tissue. Now I only buy full colonies, more expensive ,but I have only lost 1 colony as compared to a bunch of single polyps

I've raised several from one or two polyps to full colonies. I also lost a couple that started out at 8-10. All in all, I haven't noticed it being different than other LPS. Your mileage may vary.

 

[Reef Bass]

Nope, no fish yet. I figured corals might be a little bit more robust... maybe not! :headwallblue:

IME, as a generalization, fish are more tolerant of lower quality water than coral. There are, of course, exceptions.

While I've lost a couple blastos in the past, I've been having good success recently with a colony of merlettis and several beautiful one to two large polyp frags of welsi from different vendors. The environmental difference between then and now is their placement in lower lighting and a greater variety of different types of food.

 

[Silly clownfish]

There are a lot of potential causes here:
- not acclimating
- salinity increase. - I understand that most corals are more sensitive to sudden increases than decreases, but that could be for fish
- your pH is quite low and they weren't acclimated tonthat either. I would try to get that pH up a bit. Check your alkalinity, if that is low you will have a hard time stablizing your pH
- the above brings up the question of calcium. Are you testing and dosing it if you are trying to keep stony corals? If you dose kalkasser in your ATO, you can probably fix the pH, alk, and Ca with just that.
- the tank might be too new, but at 2 months post-cycle, some hardy frags could work. Personally I would start with one, not get a bunch
- if you don't have fish and weren't feeding you won't be able to maintain coral too long, but 36 hours will not starve a photosyntheic coral like a blasto. It would be an issue for some non- photosynthetic corals like gorgonians. I don't think lack of food caused this demise.

 

[SaltyWalter]

I also see you said you ramp up to 20% on both channels... I'm not all that familiar with the razor but the leds I have used I usually keep whites on 1/2 of the blue percentage, sometimes even less.

Also, experience with blastos myself, they like the dark or just blue light. And especially need less light when its led or halide.