How to care for Blasto's

[Illuminati]

Hi,

I ordered my first ever blasto's and I have heard they can be tricky to take care of.

Does anyone have any good pointers with these?

I'm mainly interested in lighting, flow and tank placement suggestions. I have a Nano Cube DX with stock lighting (Power Compacts).


If anyone else is in the market for some PM me and I'll give you a link to a website that has buy 2 blasto's and get 1 free, don't want to post it on here, not sure if that would be advertising.

Thanks

 

[impur]

Mine are on the sandbed under 250w MH with medium flow over them. Doing great and spreading currently.

 

[Justin74]

Ive definately had mixed results and consider these corals a definate challenge and very unpredictable. Like others before me Ive added multiple morphs to a system that already had a colony. Now I have no colony, they were gorgeous and healthy then blam! A week later there gone. While the ones I added (2 polyp frag) also lost a polyp when the colony was dying but have managed to save the last polyp and has been over 3-4 months now with perfect health. So over a 5-6 month period of having 2 morphs with a total of over 9 polyps Im down to one. He lives on the outskirts of my lighting near the edge of my tank half way up with moderately low flow. Good luck, seriously

-Justin

 

[Jacob D]

B. wellsi definitely seem to do better in indirect light. Otherwise they do tend to be unpredictable. I have several colonies stashed away in a cave. They are slow growers too.

B. merletti is a lot more forgiving and tolerates more light and flow. These grow at a pretty good pace.

 

[Illuminati]

Thought I'd post a picture of my new additions. Picked them up this morning and they are doing great.

 

[grisha]

i have some new blasto wellsi looking forward for this thread

 

[Snprhed]

The reds in the middle are sharp. Go ahead and put the link up. Or if you would feel better pm it to me.

 

[Illuminati]

www.sharkeysreef.com


To bad I took the goods ones (Haha just kidding).



If anyone else is just starting to keep blasto's feel free to post and tell us what your doing.

After acclimation yesterday I put them in a cave in my rockwork. Slowly I will expose them to more light and move them to right infront of the cave, making them the eyecatching centerpiece of my tank.

I will work on getting a decent full tank shot and post it.

 

[Surfzone]

does anyone target feed theirs? the onlything in my tank that i do target feed are my too sun polyp colonies, and my fungia every once in a while.

 

[firefishbrain]

blasto's are in no way hard to care for with your 24g nc... they like low flow and low light. they do love being target fed, but mine have caught food and their (for lack of a better word) "skirts". actually I would be a bit more concerned if you had a 150w MH over that tank... as I stated they like low lighted systems. whenever I bring mine home from the lfs, they usually open up within a week more than at the store. I'm working with a 24w pc in a 12g and they are perfectly fine... but target feed them once in a while, they'll like it.

oh and keep them where they are, that is a perfect spot...

 

[Illuminati]

firefishbrain, what do you target feed?

I am trying a product called Coral Frenzy. Good reviews, my candycanes seem to like it.

Could blasto's eat things like brine or mysis shrimp?

 

[Surfzone]

i feed my candycanes, and suncorals brinebuti would think that brine would be a little too big for some of the smaller blasto heads

 

[firefishbrain]

yeah they take stuff that is bigger, like mysis and brine, you could do krill if you really wanted to, just take a turkey baster (or if you have a nano, like me) or a pipette and shoot it right onto them, it'll stick, just don't do it too hard, they don't like that, just gotta be a bit gentle

 

[flipteg]

i used to target feed mine a mixture of frozen rotifers and frozen Cyclopeeze... i just don't always have the time to stay by the tank for 15 or so minutes chasing away the cleaner shrimp, while the corals consume the food... i still feed the corals once every 2 weeks... i don't target feed, but i put a little more food in... i feed oyster eggs, Cyclopeeze, and rotifers...

the blastos i have are getting little flow, and is under an overhang... only 1 or 2 polyps, get direct light from 150w MH...

 

[PufferFish87]

low flow low light... they grow very slowllllllly hence the high price.. Target feeding will help but they are still very slow growers.. One of my favorite corals. Sharky's got so many nice blastos