Green Bubble Coral

milkton

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I have had this Green bubble coral for about half a year now, and for some odd reason, these past 2-3 weeks, half of one side is deflated while the other half is fully inflated... I have tried feeding small whitefish, shrimp, and krill and it happily accepted it. The only problem is that it does not inflate to its full potential like it used to. Lighting is 3x 96W PC and every other day i turn on the 250W MH with only 1 96W PC. Water params. are Amm. 0, Nitrite. 0, Nitrate. 0-5, phosphates. 0, Salinity. 1.025. pH 8.4 Calcium. 420-440.

Is this normal? Do u think there is a bad hitchiker crab thats been bothering the bubble coral?? Some of my fish nipping at it?? The only fish that has a possibility of nipping is my blue throat trigger, but i have never seen it nip any of my other corals. Ill try getting a picture, but for now could you guys tell me the possibilties??

thanks! :good:
 
Have you changed your lighting bulbs in the year? Have you recently added anything to the tank?

Seffie x
 
As Seffie said if you havent replaced the tubes in your Power compacts then this might be something to look at (ideally you should replace PC/T5 tubes after 6 months as the light output starts to drop off after this time).

You have an odd schedule for lighting which may cause stress to the corals, but on the other hand my be much better for them (having brighter light every other day seems more natural IMO but not sure what the long term effects of this on coral growth are). Bubbles don't like particularly strong light or water flow. Check that none of your powerheads have been moved or anything else that could have changed the flow patterns.

I completely cooked my bubble coral (left the lights of for about 3 days solid). I thought it was a gonna but it is now bigger than it has ever been. It did take a good few months to recover though and while it did one side was also less deflated than the other.

It could be that a stray crab or fish has had a nip and damaged a bit of it. If that is the case then as long as the water conditions are good it should recover. Just keep a close watch on it.

Has it been expelling any brown stringy stuff (cant remember the technical name for this but basically the symbiotic algae that lives in it). Mine deflates while it does this (which happens maybe once a month) but normally reinflates within an hour. If it is doing this a lot though then it normally means a problem with the lighting.
 
Thanks Seffie, I obviously knew that but was just testing to make sure everyone was paying attention ;)
 
Sounds suspicious for a nibbler but hard to tell. I doubt it's the lighting if you've been doing this forever and all your other corals are doing fine. You'd probably see other corals going down or other changes in the thank if the lighting were bad. Your params seem fine. Keep an eye out. SH
 
yes i change my bulbs around every half year not cause because of the spectrum change but because they keep burning out :angry: . Maybe every week or every other week, it releases its zoanthellae. Not a significant change with the powerheads but will try to move it back and see what happens. like you said it is probably because of the lighting, Barney. But the odd thing is that i have had this lighting for the past year and ever since i got the buble coral, it has done well until now.
 
Yeah if you have had this light schedule for awhile it probably isn't due to that (in fact that may be beneficial to the corals and is something I hadn't thought about before). Maybe it is getting a little too much light but my bet would be that something has either nipped it or the change in flow has upset it a bit.
 
Probably a daft comment, but Bubbles can be sensitive to low carbonate/alkalinity,have you tested that lately?
 

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