brain coral question
- Thread starter ksfishguy
- Start date
coralsnaked
New member
Although there are 2 main types of brain coral IE open and closed, there are so many species from Favia to Lobo and beyond you will need to be more specific on whay type of coral you are talking about. Not sure what a "anig" air bubble is. Do you mean a big air bubble?
In the safest/simplest circumstance... some corals simply "eat" air bubbles (or are fed it trapped in food). As strange as it might sounds... the deliberate ingestion is done by some of the more heavily mucous species for the purpose of capturing food and elements such as proteins that are attracted to the air bubbles (Yes... indeed like the organics "stuck" to air bubbles in protein skimmers). In these cases though... the tiny air bubbles are easily purged. When they are large and apparent as in your case here... it leads me to believe one of two things... forced ingestion of an inappropriate food (freeze dried foods for example... that have much air trapped inside)... or stress. The former is self-explanatory... and the coral is likely to expel it in time, although you don't want to make that a habit! In the case of a stress induced symptom here... there are a few things it could be... and neither are good. The first is over stimulation (over-driving/photoinhibition) of corals by light that is too much or on too long (for this species if only in the tank). New bulbs, cleaned lamps, improved water clarity (carbon used after an absence), etc... all are things that improve or increase the quality of light and cause the zooxanthellae to work overtime to the extent that they produce oxygen inside Cnidarian tissue that cannot be processed fast enough. The other possibility is supersaturation of the water with oxygen by a leak in the plumbing (causing the aspiration of air to super-sat-levels)... OR... the inappropriate addition of hot water to cool water (during a water change or evap top off) to make "warm" water which drives the O2 out of solution quickly (the reverse of super-saturation). This can occur right within the corals tissue just like divers that get the "bends" from nitrogen
Hope this excert from Web Media Mussids' helps
Merry Skerry
In the safest/simplest circumstance... some corals simply "eat" air bubbles (or are fed it trapped in food). As strange as it might sounds... the deliberate ingestion is done by some of the more heavily mucous species for the purpose of capturing food and elements such as proteins that are attracted to the air bubbles (Yes... indeed like the organics "stuck" to air bubbles in protein skimmers). In these cases though... the tiny air bubbles are easily purged. When they are large and apparent as in your case here... it leads me to believe one of two things... forced ingestion of an inappropriate food (freeze dried foods for example... that have much air trapped inside)... or stress. The former is self-explanatory... and the coral is likely to expel it in time, although you don't want to make that a habit! In the case of a stress induced symptom here... there are a few things it could be... and neither are good. The first is over stimulation (over-driving/photoinhibition) of corals by light that is too much or on too long (for this species if only in the tank). New bulbs, cleaned lamps, improved water clarity (carbon used after an absence), etc... all are things that improve or increase the quality of light and cause the zooxanthellae to work overtime to the extent that they produce oxygen inside Cnidarian tissue that cannot be processed fast enough. The other possibility is supersaturation of the water with oxygen by a leak in the plumbing (causing the aspiration of air to super-sat-levels)... OR... the inappropriate addition of hot water to cool water (during a water change or evap top off) to make "warm" water which drives the O2 out of solution quickly (the reverse of super-saturation). This can occur right within the corals tissue just like divers that get the "bends" from nitrogen
Hope this excert from Web Media Mussids' helps
Merry Skerry
Last edited:
