Candy Apple Blasto

Blastomussa corals are also sometimes called simply “Blastos” or Swollen Brain Coral. It is an LPS
coral that has many round, swollen discs. From a distance the discs can sometimes be confused
with mushrooms.
Blastomussa grow as colonies and one single polyp can soon grow into a colony. Like all LPS
corals, their skeleton is made out of calcium carbonate. Blastos come in a wide variety of colours
but generally have mouths and flesh of contrasting colours. Red and green is one of the more
common colour patterns.
Blastos are found, like many corals in the saltwater hobby, in the Indo-Pacific region. The majority
are imported from Australia but Indonesia is said to have some of the most striking colour morphs.
They generally live on the reef walls at lower depths and can be found as deep as 130 feet. In a
home aquarium, they can either be placed on a piece of rock on the bottom of the tank or on the
main rockwork in the lower third of the tank. They can be placed on rocky substrate but it is not
recommended to place them directly on a sandy bottomed tank. They can safely touch other
blastomussa but generally should not touch other coral species.
Blastomussa corals do better in lower light than high light. For this reason they should be placed in
a lower light area of the tank near the bottom. If exposed to too much light bubbles may begin to
form in their flesh. Blastos also do better in lower levels of flow. The flow should be sufficient to
prevent detritus from building up on them but should not cause the flesh to move excessively. Their
polyps can be damaged from excessive flow.
Like all LPS corals, Blastomussa are photosynthetic and can derive all their energy needs from
aquarium lighting. However, they do respond well to being spot fed and will happily accept LPS
pellet food. They are fairly easy to frag since each head is completely independent and a single
head will become a colony quite quickly.
While Blastos are one of the easier LPS corals to keep, they require stable water parameters and
monitoring of alkalinity and calcium levels.