bubble coral help

[jeffjets]

Hello I am new here but need some advice. I have a reef tank that is about 1 year old. I started with a bunch of cured live rock and have had no real issues besides some minor beginner issues. I have a bubble coral I have had about 6 months now and it is not doing too well as of this last week. I took some pictures with my parents camera but they did not come out too well. The link is below. I am worried the coral is not going to survive and am looking for any suggestions at all. It is starting to "deflate" on one end and it all shrivelled up.

One thing I did recently do was upgrade my lighting to a metal halide setup from compact florecent. I thought if anything it would help my corals, not kill them.

http://www.numinous-guild.com/images/aquarium/

 

[rkelman]

You need to acclimate corals to stronger lighting. You can't just turn them on 8 hours a day. You should start with a couple hours maybe and work up from there slowly. Are you feeding the Bubble? It looks like it may have 2 heads are you feeding both?

 

[jeffjets]

Thanks for the fast reply. I didn't adjust my lighting schedule at all with the new light. I guess I can start doing that tomorrow morning. I went from a setup with 1-96 watt actinic and 1-96 watt daylight to a setup with 2-96 watt actinics and 1-250 MH daylight. Would it be reasonable to leave the actinics on the regular cycle and cut the MH down to a few hours a day and progressively increase it?

As for feedings, what do you mean by 2 heads? I knew you need to feed the coral from reading up on them. Normally once a week I drop some mysid shrimp into the center area after the lights are off and the tentacles come out. The past few days the coral is not opening at all at night though, it just shrinks all in close to the rock.

 

[ahullsb]

I would cut down the time on the mh's today. Start with them on for 2 hours or so, and every few days add an hour. Your corals should recover in time. If you are not sure whether the coral is getting enough food or not, you can feed it directly. What has worked for me is to thaw a cube of mysis in a shot glass with water. Then I take the eye dropper that came with my phytoplankton, and suck the mysis into it. I put it right into the mouth of my brain coral, and bubble, and shoot some inside. Then I have to fend off my shrimp and crabs for a few minutes. Hope that helps.

 

[IndyReefMan]

Bubble corals are not "high" light corals. Some would even consider them to be "low"light. Are there any rock overhangs that you can place it under so that it doesn't get direct MH lighting, at least for the time being? Then, you could slowly move him out. I keep my bubble mostly shaded under a rock overhang all of the time-- that way, he gets more diffuse lighting. That works very well for me, along with biweekly feeding of mysis shrimp.

 

[jeffjets]

Thanks for the help. I just adjusted my timers to cut down the light for now. I will try that and hopefully it will recover. I will take a good look and see if there is any way I can easily reposition it also so it is not in direct light.

 

[Roy G. Biv]

I have 2 bubble corals. I have 250w halides. I had to move them out of direct light, they werent doing well in high light.

 

[saltybuckeye]

I've had my bubble for about 6 years and have upgraded tanks a couple of times.It is sensative to light changes but also to water movement.Do you have a powerhead aimed to close to it? Mine looked like that one time and I moved it away from the stronger flow and it was fine.

 

[rkelman]

Bubbles can get 2 heads.. You would see two "mouths". I think your feeding is fine. Although you don't need to wait until the tentacles come out. I feed mine 1 whole krill (about 3/4") a week. I just place it at the opening of the mouth and it holds on to it and pulls it in.

 

[Mattmcf]

my bubble has these little fits every now and then. Not sure if you mentioned it but where is the bubble in the tank? If it is not in the sand, or near the bottom, you could try moving it. I also agree with the lighting suggestion. Just be patient, the bubble coral is actually pretty hardy, and given your water parameters are stable, it should soon adjust to the new lighting. Mine is also in a low flow area, ive been told that too much flow can actually make the bubble coral puncture itself by blowing to hard against it's skeleton. HTH

 

[jeffjets]

I think it took a turn for the worst. I adjusted the light cycle to 3 hours for almost a week and then bumped it up to 4. But the coral has gotten worst over time. The skeleton has actually torn through the area that was all sunk in before and now about half of the coral is sunk in. It looks like it is spreading to the part that was fine before.

Is there a way to cut the bad section apart and cut the rock in half to try and salvage the remaining good portion or will it be too much shock and just claim the coral anyways? I am almost positive the coral will not survive if left alone. It is to the point every day it is getting worse. Is this just a losing battle now and I should pull it out of my main tank?

 

[rkelman]

It sounds bad.. Sometimes just moving them helps. I don't think that's going to help yours. It couldnt hurt at this point to cut yours. I agree its dead anyways. Good luck.

 

[pezcubano]

I've had mine for 2-3 months. I just moved mine up closer to the MHs and its doing MUCH better than before. Not that it was doing bad when it was mid level, but now it looks awesome. I moved it 2 days ago and the change was noticeable the following day. All the bubbles are fully inflated the entire day.