bubble coral acting wierd?

[julie]

I've had a bubble coral for 3 months. It has been looking great and all of a sudden the past couple days, I don't know if it's closing up early or it isn't opening. The lights turn on at 3pm and by the time I get home from work, 6:30pm for the most part the coral isn't open. All I see is skeleton. Any suggestions? I usually try to feed it brine shrimp about 3 times a week. I know when I feed it, the pressure from the baster I use seems to bother it some and I don't really know how much food it is actually getting. Also, I don't know how much food it picks up from normal feedings of the fish.

 

[julie]

bump

 

[sandman12]

i havent had mine that long but the same thing is happening to mine. Iam really starting to get worried, it hasnt opened for 2 days no.

 

[holloway]

sorry julie I don't know the answer but I have the same problem. I'm curious too. Good luck.

 

[shoreliner11]

Well to be contrary, I am nursing a dieing bubble I got from the lfs back to health and i don't feed it anything other than dosing the tank with microvert and its growing like a weed. As everyone else always says though, when in doubt...do a water change. Maybe run carbon for a couple days after the water change and see if that helps. I hope all works goes well for all ya though. :yes:

 

[julie]

what is microvert?
I did do a water change last week-end and I'm always running carbon.

 

[julie]

I have a 200 gallon tank with a 45 gallon sump tank. With 2 96 watt twin bulb smart lamps and 3 halide lights(which don't run all of the time). The bubble coral is placed at the bottom of the tank, but not on the sand. The pH is 8.2, salinity is 1.024,
0-ammonia, 0-nitrate, 0-nitrite. The temp is 76 degrees.

 

[wrassecal]

julie - your tank sounds awesome. Is it sending out any feeder tentacles? Do you have other corals that are doing fine? You say it's on the bottom but, not on the sand. Could something be irritating it? What's close by it? FWIW my bubble coral got down to about 4 itty bitty bubbles about a year ago and stayed that way until about 3 months later I noticed it getting a few more bubbles. I wasn't even feeding it, thought it was a gonner. Now it's in low flow, on the sand and it is just beautiful and bigger than a softball. I feed the meaty foods. I guess I'm saying even if you don't figure out exactly what's wrong, don't take it out, they are amazing with their ability to come back.

 

[julie]

It is sending out a few feelers, but not a whole lot. I'll try to post a picture, tomorrow. There isn't any other corals close by, only rock. Should I move it to the sand bed? I find it very hard to feed the coral. Everytime I try to give it food with the feelers out, when there was a lot of them, they would never grab the food. I always fed them with a turkey baster. I also have several mushrooms, sun coral, green polyps and cabbage leather and everything else looks good.

 

[wrassecal]

Do you have aquarium tongs? You might try gently placing a small bit of the "meaty" shrimp, krill etc. into the bubbles and let it handle it itself. I wouldn't say you should keep it on the sand, I keep mine there and it bubbles up over some rocks. If this keeps up it may be just a matter of moving it to a lower, low flow location and see if it perks up after a while. Drives me nuts when I have one coral going through something like that and I can't figure it out. Sometimes a move will help. I've got a frogspawn that I've had a year and half in a bit of a funk right now while it's long time tankmates are lookin good. You've definately got enough light in a 200 for this coral and you are right to keep it low IMO. Is the tank 3 months old? or just you've had the coral 3 months?

 

[julie]

The tank is 24 inches in depth and made by oceanic. The MH are 175 watts, 10,000K. The tank has been set-up for 2 years, I've just had this bubble coral for a few months. Like I said before, everything else looks good. The is hardly any enlarged bubbles, it is mainly just skeleton I see with a few feelers. I don't know if there is enough feelers to hold on to any meaty material if I was to find some tongs and put it into the tank. I will try to get a picture posted tomorrow, to give you a more detailed look at what I'm talking about. So, please continue to look for this post and reply, before it is too late.

 

[wrassecal]

Ok looking forward to the pic. Don't give up on it though even if you think it's a goner. Mine did come back and I wasn't feeding it anything, thought I'd just have a skeleton in there. I would move it though, in case that's it's problem. Good luck!

 

[overanalyzer]

Your temp is @ 76?? With Halides on?? Your temp lower in your tank might be even cooler. You might try to slowly bring up your temp or move a thermometer lower into the water and see what the temp is down near the sand bed.
Also what is your flow like?? are you getting enough flow @ all tank levels - in a tank that deep you can have issues with one level getting a lot of flow but another level being a bit more stagnant. Read in a book about a guy having trouble with his corals on a lower level and it turned out they were in a split situation of a lot of flow up top and not enough on the sand bed.
If the coral is putting out feeder tenticles they feed it a piece of shrimp (not brine - but grocery store shrimp).
Good luck!

 

[kistheeze]

Seems like Enigma covered it.
If you need additional help Jule - I can continue where he left off...

 

[julie]

Well, I can't get the pictures to take on the site, the pictures have too many bytes. If there is an e-mail address I can send them to that would work.
As far as the temp, I have the thermometer in the sump tank and it reads 76 degrees, I double checked it with the main tank down towards the sand and it read 76 degrees. Like I said earlier, the halides aren't on all of the time. The water flow where the bubble is located is low. I don't think I have a problem with water movement at the bottom, because anenomes and feather duster are located there and they do have some slight movement.

 

[julie]

I am going to try to send a smaller picture.

 

[overanalyzer]

OK - this is what I'd do:
1. Slowly raise the temp from 76 to at least 78 or even 80 - but be very patient with that.
2. I had a bubble coral that looked a LOT worse than that and here is what I did:
* Blow it off with a turkey baster (this should cause it to contract - do this only once - your coral does not need any more stress!!)
* use a soft bristled tooth brush and brush the algea and detrius off the skeleton (right after the turkey baster blowing - the main portion should still be retracted).
* brush VERY gently the edge of healthy tissue - just a slight massage
* Do all of that right before lights out - all of your activity should have some particles up in the water - check your coral with a flashlight a couple of hours later - the tenticles should be out and feeding on the stirred up particles
* Feed the coral the next day with a meaty piece of silver sides or krill or grocery store shrimp (no more brine)
* Feed every other day use the too0th brush to keep the green algea off the skeleton
Good luck!!

 

[julie]

So, you are telling me to do this right before lights go off tonight? About 30 minutes or so? I don't seem to have any algae on the skeleton, should I still brush it? When you say brush the edge of the healthy tissue, are you talking to brush right up to the edge where the bubbles form? So, don't feed it today, what until tomorrow? I hope this works, it actually is looking a little bit worse than when I took that picture.

 

[kistheeze]

personally I wouldn't do any brushing... I'm thinking that will add extra stress. Perhaps if the skeleton was overrun with algae and the coral was being choked by it. But your picture shows otherwise.

 

[julie]

so, what should I do?