Blasto Concerns with mouth wide open.

[fdevans]

Noticing some concerning sights on my Blasto. Mouth open and seems to have shrunk back a bit in the last few days.

Numbers
Ph - 8.3 (stays close to this with refugium and Co2 scrubber)
Alk - 9.3 (This is high right now cause I ran a test right after the dosing pumps ran, but generally stays within +/- .1 of 9.0)
Ca - 438
Mg - 1410
Tmp - 78.3
Nitrate - 4.3
Phosphate - 0.0 (Hanna High Range)

I'm working on getting and keeping the Phosphate up a bit. Since adding the refugium it's been a new balancing act. All the other corals look normal SPS/LPS mix. I do have one Frogspawn that never seems happy so his normal is unhappy. I'm going to try some direct feeding of something meaty to the Blasto and see if it responds. Any other thoughts welcome.

 

[KrisReef]

I see only one gaping mouth so I would presume that polyp is taking a breather (or something else I might not write) but the other mouths are normal. I would not feed extra, it may be counter intuitive but look for extended feeding tentacles at night to signal that it wants to eat. Open mouth maybe it's trying to expel or eliminate what it already swallowed. The over all presentation is healthy + one gaping polyp. You also mentioned keeping stability, and that issue would be the other concern but you covered it already. Maybe post a pic of the frogspawn for comparison.

 

[fdevans]

Thanks for the background on the Blasto. I'll keep an eye on it and look for feeders tonight.

Here's the Frogspawn (and a healthy torch next to it)

This one has had it rough as it was one of my first corals and has been through some learning curves and stability adjustments. Early on it had a Euphyllia eating flat worm, then had to fight swings in most of the numbers until I got my own learning and issues fixed.

Lately I think it's staying a bit small due to Phosphates running low after the introduction of the refugium. I was previously using Chemipure Elite and have removed that and lightly dosing NeoPhos hoping phosphates start to climb back up a bit. There was a short period where it was happier when the water was "dirtier".

 

[KrisReef]

I feed my wife's fish to raise phosphates. The tank eats nitrates, so I add those now and again. Your corals don't look too bad, ime. Did you have the pumps/flow off for these pictures? I am wondering if additional water motion might help? (Wild guess.)

And all these corals can take a bit of time until they decide that its safe to start thriving/growing. Sometimes it is only a week, and other times months with nothing and bam they start growing and you'll forget they every were small frags.

 

[fdevans]

Thanks for the feedback. The pumps were on. Frogspawn is so small it doesn't flow much. The other gets some pretty random movement but is in a lower turblent spot than the front of the tank where the Blasto is. There's a walk around video of the tank on my instagram here.

 

[KrisReef]

Looks much better in the video. I would focus on the param stability and wait for them to start growing.

 

[fdevans]

Unfortunately it seems to be getting worse. I think I'll take it out and dip it and check the hidden sides just to make sure nothing is eating away at it.

 

[DeniseAndy]

Looks to be expelling something. Did you feed it any larger food or pellets? I do not feed the blastos specifically. Just my live phyto and broadcast filter feeding items.
The other two look fine, so hopefully even if it passes, you have the other two to grow some more.

 

[fdevans]

I have fed small bits since I got it. I stopped when it started looking off. Not sure if if it recently caught something it shouldn't have though.

 

[DeniseAndy]

See if you can blow gently with a turkey baster and suck the stuff out. Very gently though. Do not stress it out. I think it is just overfed.