Sick blastos

[x19]

Hey all, so my blastos has not been looking good over the past week and a half or so.

Here it is a month and a half ago:

Here it is 3 days ago - Note it is starting to lose the pink on the center polyp, and you can see the exposed skeleton:

And here it is tonight - the color loss has progressed the bottom polyp, which looks sick and withdrawn. Also note the exposed skeleton on the top polyp:

Shortly before the middle picture I found the coral on its side, and replaced it. I've added the ecoxotic strip light, but the blastos was having problems before that.

Levels:

Nitrate: 3.5 ppm
Ammonia: 0 ppm
Phosphate: .5 ppm
PH: 8.2 ppm

Thanks for any suggestions.

 

[bjohanson1234]

Did you acclimate them to your light?

What kind of lighting are you using?

What kind of flow are they in?

 

[x19]

Yes, when I added them they were acclimated to the light but that was 2 months ago. I have Power Compacts, two 96w tubes. Its moderate flow, and there is an Acan right next to them. The flow has not changed recently.

 

[Bifferwine]

I have seen this happen to a couple of my blasto polyps recently as well. At first I freaked out. But only one or two polyps seemed to die off. I don't know why. It may be coincidental, but they were the polyps that got the least amount of light, as they were on the underside of the frag rock they came on.

I hope yours don't continue to decline. I can't see anything wrong with your water quality.

 

[cageburn]

Ya that is really really odd Eric. Have you tried feeding them sum mysis or something by hand? My LPS love it when I do that. A couple times my acans would act up n show signs of stress and would receed a bit but with my expeirence it stops when I start power feeding them. Maybe try giving them some food? If they accept it n puff up reall nice then keep doing it. My only guess as to why your blastos are showing stress would be the acan in close proximity. If you can move the acan as far away as possible, I've noticed my acans will get ready for battle even if there about 3-4 inches away from any of my lps.

 

[Hiker4twenty]

+1,2 &3. It is strange, but it happens. I had pretty much the same thing happen to my blasto merlite for no reason that I can think of. It took a good month at least, but they made it through it. Is there any way the acan can be stinging it? Not sure how close it is to the acan. Also, have you tried to target feed the blasto? Keep us updated on what's going on. Good luck!

 

[Ourfish]

Can corals die of old age?

 

[x19]

I've been target feeding the blastos and it seems as though the middle one is doing a little better, no change on the others.

 

[cageburn]

did you try moving the acan away?

 

[x19]

Oh yeah, I did move the Acan away. Its interesting because the acan has developed some white right around the bottom edge of the polyp and I thought it was too little light so I move it to a brighter position on a rock about 4 inches higher in the tank. The bleaching got worse so I moved it back to its original position which was near the blastos.

Unfortunately, I can't remember if the Blastos problems started when I moved the Acan...perhaps the acan stressed from the move attacked everything nearby?

Hopefully, the blastos will come back. The top polyp looks like the flesh is returning to the part previously retracted, but there is also more skeleton exposed around the edge. So I can't really tell if its getting better or worse.

The middle one I think is getting better as its starting to get a little color back, but we'll have to wait and see.

The bottom polyp is totally split in two and looks awful, I can't imagine it recovering.

 

[Bifferwine]

If you want, try moving the blastos down to the bottom of your tank. The ones I had that were doing the same thing (slowly dying off one by one) came back once I moved them out of the light. Maybe when the polyps are small, they are super sensitive to bright light?

 

[x19]

They actually are at the bottom, in the sandbed.

 

[Bifferwine]

Ugh then I don't have any other suggestions except good luck, and I hope they pull through.

 

[fastrd400]

I have a set of Blastos that when I got looked like this:

I placed them on the sand bed, fed the tank Phyto Feast, Oyster Feast and Arcti-Pods. Once the skirts started to plump back up a bit I started to target feed them with Mysis every other day. I will normally place a barrier over the top so that they get plenty to eat and the fish don't take it from them.

Within a few weeks they looked like this:

Today they are even a bit more plump, and still developing their color back. I am shipping them to Biff sometime in the next couple weeks :^: