Blastos declining dont know why help...

GroYurOwn

New member
I dont have pics right now i am at work, but i have a colony of blood red blasto wellsis, they were completely healthy, until i had a tumble and one small head was damaged. All the other heads were fine, but the damage seamed to continue to creep, one head at a time, and now it is rapidly progressing. EVERYTHING else in my tank is fine, including a colony of merlettis, i do not have specific params, but there is nothing wrong there, this started with a small amount of damage to one of the heads and it continued, even now, the heads that are unaffected look great. i want to save something here because this freakin colony cost me 115$! please help
 
I don't know but ime,i wouldn't dip them. The extra stress of taking them out, dipping, moving them is alot. IME, blastos may be the most tempremental coral ive owned!

I got a new colony a while back and moved my other colonies just a few inches or turned them in a different direction to fit the new colony in. The result was that over the next 3 days, they stayed closed and heads started melting. I freaked and printed out a picture of how they were, put them back in the EXACT place that they were and within 1 day, they were open and full and stopped melting:confused:

I would just leave them and try to feed them everyday cyclopeeze or similar and PRAY they get thru.
 
for some reason i dont get great results from praying....it just baffles me that the heads are either looking great or dead! there is no in between!
 
I have the same thing though. I have colonies where some heads are doing incredible but some seem to be fading. A week later, it will be reversed:confused: I'll be convinced a colony is dying and 1-2 days later it looks amazing???

Again, i would leave them be and try feeding them. Mine definitely dont like being moved around and reacted VERY badly to it.
 
I agree with sufunk they don't like to be moved at all. I have dipped them in the past without ill effect but was very careful to put them back exactly as they were. I can't say the lugol's dips were effective.
 
so did they actually recover or were you left with a colony that had a bunch of dead heads? has it had any growth?
 
I too would be too nervous to dip with Lugols, ESPECIALLY blastos :/ But would suggest moving them somewhere else within the tank to see how they respond. They may be getting too much or not enough of something in regards to light and flow. Too much flow is a sure fire way to **** em off.

I would equally suggest that you put fresh carbon in if you havent already. This may help to dull any allopathy it's experiencing or help detoxify any unknowns elements.

i do not have specific params, but there is nothing wrong there
This statement though is an oxymoron. How do you know nothing's wrong? Just because other corals in the tank are fine is not a definitive measure of water quality. In some cases it would merely indicate which corals are hardier to water imbalances and imperfections. $115 is very worth it to go run a sample down to your LFS and get EVERYTHING tested, Ca, dKh, Mg, pH, phosphates and nitrates.

My personal suspicions are the latter two if it's not a simple fix like flow or lighting.

-Justin
 
Check alk first, then cal, and don't neglect the during-cycling tests you used to do.
 
Lugol's doesn't hurt them in my experience. Relocation does once they are established. This is so even when you think you are improving conditions for them. Once established in your tank they just don't seem to adjust very well to changes.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=10493506#post10493506 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tmz
Lugol's doesn't hurt them in my experience. Relocation does once they are established. This is so even when you think you are improving conditions for them. Once established in your tank they just don't seem to adjust very well to changes.

I always dip and it hasn't hurt mine. I currently have 4 different colonies doing well and eating like pigs.
 
Dipping is fine when you get them, i always do that. Once they are established in a tank though, i wouldn't take them out again and dip them except as an absolute last resort.

If they are already stressed or hurting, i think taking them out will do more harm than good. The odds that they actually have an infection that an iodine dip would help are fairly small in my mind and not worth the stress of taking them out and dipping them.

IME, they do not like to be moved at all and do not react well, even do the point of melting. I know it's hard to watch them decline but i would let them ride and try to feed and keep the water good.

Either way, good luck and keep us posted and try to post some pics tonight if you can of what they are looking like right now.
 
I'd start with an alk/dKH check. That is likely one of the most basic forgotten killers. If you're not checking and adding ca and buffer and have had the tank running for a while, you will likely find that you need to add some of each. Keeping the balance can be a pain (especially once you start loading in LPS and SPS)...

What kind of time frame are we talking here (how long in the tank before they fell, how long since they fell and how much tissue loss since it started losing tissue)?
 
I had the same problem sometime ago and lost a wonderfull blasto in two weeks head by head. when I took out the scheleton from water I discovered some small nudis that probably ate the colony. some time after I discovered they were spreading on a colony of acans, what I did was to eliminate as much as possible the ones already afected with phisical means. For the moment it has stopped but I do not know if I eliminated the nudis completely.
 
Victor,

Can you get some pics of the nudis the next time you see them. I haven't heard of many issues with nudis on things other than Montipora and zoas, so I'd be interested in seeing any pics of the monsters.
 
Hej again.

to be more precise the whole issue started when I bought a monti danae (in Europe we have had a plague of nudis coming with danaes from a retailer). I do not know if the nudis I referred were eating the blastos and acans are the same because I introduced the balto at the same time od the danae but it could perfectly be that there were two differet species or the same adapted to different corals.

I have maintain the danae but as I said the blasto is gone and the acan that was close to the blasto is recovering.

Another issue that is happenig in my tank is related to a colony of caulastrea green-yellow. I discovered in one of the heads a black spot I thought it was a nudi and tried to take it out with a small piece of timber. I was very surprised because there was a kind of snail introduced in a hole with part of the body inside and part outside. I do not know if there is any connection with the blastos etc but there is a possibility.


Excuse me for my English (whenever I get a picture I will send it.
 
Victor, your English is excellent.

Will a freshwater dip do anything to get rid of nudis? I don't have much experience.

I suppose it could be coincidence that your blasto fell, and was at the same time suffering from some sort of predation (nudis, etc.). My single colony of blastomussa merletti has been fairly stable, regardless of where I put it...but definitely is happiER in low flow, low light conditions.

Good luck. Pics?
 
Victor,
I had tose nudibranch on a montipora danae as well. They are very difficult to remove. Iodide dip such as lugols seems to kill the adults but not the eggs. I didn't do a fresh water dip because I believe the montipora and other sps would not do well with it.I have also had the balastomossa problem described with several colonies.Coincidence? probably.

Der Iron Chef

My merlettis are very hardy and don't seem to mind being moved at all. It's the welsis that are extremely sensitive .
 
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