Who's got the skinny on the Blastomussa Merletti?

[CHUBAKAH]

Since I was doing the group buy for the Florida Ricordea's I thought I'd add something else to the list. Well I hadn't seen this thing before so I figured what the heck. Well now that I have it, I figured I may need to know a little something about it.

 

If it turns out looking like this one, it could easily jump to the top of my list of favorites.

 

The one I have is these exact same colors except mine has about 8 heads.

 

Anyone with experience on these?

 

Thanks in advance!

[dshnarw]

Just treat them like little brain corals.

 

Most are quite flexible on lighting and flow, and appreciate a good feeding of meaty foods. Tend to be fairly hardy.

[lanman]

Pretty fast growing under the right conditions - they will take mysis. I'll trade you a few polyps of mine for a few polyps of yours!

 

bob

[MLazar]

Can I be first on the frag list...............even if it is months away?

 

Enjoy,

 

Maureen

[Valeria]

I have two gorgeous colonies, they have done well under low light and medium flow. They are good growers. Mine love cyclopeeze.

[BeltwayBandit]

Excellent coral. I had one that grew prolifically in my old tank. I had it in moderate lighting (side of a rock pillar partially shaded). It was in a moderate flow area of the tank. I spot fed it with mysis, cyclopeeze, and cut silversides. It exhibited a very fast feeding response and quickly grew from 4 heads to almost 20.

 

Spot feeding with a turkey baster was the most effective method I found. I would dissolve some frozen mash (mysis, cyclopeeze, silverside, shrimp, etc.) and give a quick shot to the tank (to distract the fish) then I would target feed all of my LPS corals. You do have to watch out that your shrimps don't steal the food from them. I would spot feed ~3 times a week. I also noted feeding response when I fed the tank as well.

 

BB

[CHUBAKAH]

Excellent coral. I had one that grew prolifically in my old tank. I had it in moderate lighting (side of a rock pillar partially shaded). It was in a moderate flow area of the tank. I spot fed it with mysis, cyclopeeze, and cut silversides. It exhibited a very fast feeding response and quickly grew from 4 heads to almost 20.

 

Spot feeding with a turkey baster was the most effective method I found. I would dissolve some frozen mash (mysis, cyclopeeze, silverside, shrimp, etc.) and give a quick shot to the tank (to distract the fish) then I would target feed all of my LPS corals. You do have to watch out that your shrimps don't steal the food from them. I would spot feed ~3 times a week. I also noted feeding response when I fed the tank as well.

 

BB

 

Thank you much for the advice!

Pretty fast growing under the right conditions - they will take mysis. I'll trade you a few polyps of mine for a few polyps of yours!

 

bob

 

I take you up on that as soon as I can, but my coral is very small at the moment.

 

Can I be first on the frag list...............even if it is months away?

 

Enjoy,

 

Maureen

 

Hopefully mine does well, and I can do that! We'll see how fast it grows.

[lanman]

Thank you much for the advice!

I take you up on that as soon as I can, but my coral is very small at the moment.

Hopefully mine does well, and I can do that! We'll see how fast it grows.

 

Give it a nice rounded rock to grow on, and it will surprise you. I'd say mine went from 10 polyps to 30 polyps in about 2 months.

 

bob

[rioreef]

www.Tropicorium.com sells a lot of them and has been for a long time. They are a wholesaler with store and online sales to hobbyist. This is **** Perrin's place who is a legendary coral farmer even decades ago.

 

Email them and they might be able to give you some husbandry advice.

[vaironman]

There are several types/patterns of blasto. These Blastomussa merletti love cyclopeeze.

Edited April 26, 2008 by vaironman