Bubble Coral Not "Bubbling"

[Mister_Palmer]

I've had my Bubble Coral for about 4 weeks now, and for the last 2-3 days it hasn't been completely "Inflating".
It's about 35-40%.

I have it under a 2 Bulb T5 HO light, and I give my tank phytoplankton 2-3 times a week, and I've also tried directly feeding the Bubble some mysis and Rod's food.
It seemed to take it, but I'm not really certain.

So are they just finicky sometimes, or are there any suggestions as to how to get it to look better?

Here's a picture from the first week, and then right now.

I kind of am assuming it's my weaker lighting, but I was told it should be adequate and I'm seeing a lot of stuff about how it'll tolerate lower levels.
All my soft stuff is growing rapidly, this is the only thing that's kind of struggling lately.

 

[BANDIT ANGEL]

Bubbles will digest their food after feeding and look flat, in my opinion these corals can't eat too much meaty foods or they will have digestive failures.

 

[Mister_Palmer]

Bubbles will digest their food after feeding and look flat, in my opinion these corals can't eat too much meaty foods or they will have digestive failures.

Hmmm, so is once a week target feeding too much?

I'm kind of thinking that's not the problems since I really don't give it too much meaty foods.
Just try to get a little shrimp pieces close to it once a week.

 

[kawicivic]

looks like a water quality issue by the pictures. From my understanding, these corals are very hard to adapt to aquariums, but very hardy once they do. The skeleton showing is an issue. if it was just deflated without the ribbed skeleton showing I would tell you not to worry. How much flow is it in? I don't think the lighting is inadequate. I think it is either too much flow or water quality issues.

good luck! My bubble coral is one of my favorite corals

 

[Mister_Palmer]

looks like a water quality issue by the pictures. From my understanding, these corals are very hard to adapt to aquariums, but very hardy once they do. The skeleton showing is an issue. if it was just deflated without the ribbed skeleton showing I would tell you not to worry. How much flow is it in? I don't think the lighting is inadequate. I think it is either too much flow or water quality issues.

good luck! My bubble coral is one of my favorite corals

It's not in much flow at all, should I try more?
I thought it wanted low-flow.

I'll check my water tonight, and see if anything is up.

 

[ssavader]

I see that you have it on a rock. The bubbles are very fragile and will not respond well to the irritation of the rock. My suggestion would be to place on the sand away from irritating base material, and in low to medium flow (you should not see the bubbles blowing around).

 

[Mister_Palmer]

Well I think it's on the sand, but I have that longer skinny rock in front of it... I'll have to go look.

I just tested everything:

Ammonia - 0
Nitrite - 0
Nitrate - 5
KH - 7
Calcium - 520
PH - 8.3
Salinity - 1.026

The KH is a little low I know, but everything else seems ok, doesn't it?
Nitrate I can knock down next water change, but 5 seems alright (though I know 0 is the target)

 

[Mister_Palmer]

It was kind of sandwiched between some rock, but the bottom was in sand.
I moved it over into an open area.

I just kind of put the bottom part a little bit down into the sand, is that right?

 

[skrillnet]

The skeleton showing a little isn't necessarily bad. Ours withdraws every night and you can see its skeleton very clearly. If the flesh starts to recede off the skeleton then you have a problem.

Ours sits in the sand and took about a week to look like it did in the store. Depending on its size you may try to feed it a silverside.

You probably need to check the water for phosphates as well. Just because the trates are low doesn't mean the phosphates are.

 

[Mister_Palmer]

Good point on the phosphates.
I'll have to bring it somewhere on Monday and get it tested.

Mine have been known to get on the high side, and I'm sure my GFO is probably all used up right now.

But, if the phosphates are high, would that explain why only 1 out of maybe 20 corals doesn't look great?

 

[skrillnet]

IME sometimes it takes time for some corals to show stress. Also u mentioned that most of your other corals are softies. Usually soft corals can handle a little "dirtier" water than LPS also it seems that sometimes corals get acclimated to higher phosphates. I have seen systems that had very high phosphates (2.0 ppm) and everything seemed fine, but every new addition to the tank bleached and died.

 

[Mister_Palmer]

Good to know...
I'm going to get them tested on Monday, and hopefully if they are a little high a WC and GFO can knock them down.

Don't want to lose this coral.

 

[kawicivic]

I have always kept mine on rockwork. *shrugs*

I feed mine any time I feed the corals and many times when I feed the fish (feed over the top of the bubble so that the food doesn't go to waste). I have never heard of digestive failure.

Low - med flow is good. I see a frogspawn in the picture. I keep all of my LPS in similar flow - enough to make the polyps jiggle around but not enough to rip flesh. Your tank looks to be ok in regards to this after looking at the photos.

To me your calcium is a little high and your alk is a little low - however, with that said - I don't always strive for perfect numbers. What is your dosing habits? Do your params bounce around or are they pretty steady? I personally would not worry about 5 nitrates in regards to your bubble.

I see some darker green spots on the photo - is that algae? Is that on the skeleton? If so, that would be my biggest concern.

I would make sure nothing is super out of whack and try to wait it out - moving it around a bunch and messing with it will stress it as well. Might want to try a decent water change and give it some time.

 

[AGYDAL]

What is you magnesium? Are you dosing Alk or Ca?

 

[Mister_Palmer]

To me your calcium is a little high and your alk is a little low - however, with that said - I don't always strive for perfect numbers. What is your dosing habits? Do your params bounce around or are they pretty steady? I personally would not worry about 5 nitrates in regards to your bubble.

I see some darker green spots on the photo - is that algae? Is that on the skeleton? If so, that would be my biggest concern.

I would make sure nothing is super out of whack and try to wait it out - moving it around a bunch and messing with it will stress it as well. Might want to try a decent water change and give it some time.

I actually don't dose with anything. The Calcium has literally stayed around 500-520 since I started the tank, on it's own I guess.

I mostly do a weekly water change of around 5-7Gs, so about 10% a week. And occasionally I'll skip a week or 2 and then do a bigger change.

As far as them bouncing around, when they were "bubbled", yes they would kind of dance around in the tank.
And the green stuff you might be seeing could be the glass... It needs to be mag-floated.
I don't think there's any algae on the actual coral.

What is you magnesium? Are you dosing Alk or Ca?

Haven't checked Magnesium... I guess I should. Don't have a tester for that, obv never tested it :hmm2:

 

[Mister_Palmer]

Here's another photo of it immediately after I turned the lights on.

Is this algae you were talking about? It is kind of weird looking.

 

[Mister_Palmer]

Last photo, promise...

But now it's looking a little better after a few hours of light and a new location away from rock.

What it looked like the other day Vs. Now after a few hours

NOW

 

[ssavader]

Looking much better! Hopefully it will continue to improve.

 

[kawicivic]

Looking much better! Hopefully it will continue to improve.

+1

The area you circled was one of my concerned areas. Looks like it is in a happy spot now. I would just keep an eye on it and try not to change much until it heals up. I personally would feed it some as well, but it appears there are conflicting opinions on this based on the thread.

Keep us updated!

(ps - no need to appologize for photos - everyone likes photos in threads! Only time photos makes me mad is when someone quotes a whole string of photos ad says - "those look nice" or something like that - thats just annoying - lol)

 

[skrillnet]

(ps - no need to appologize for photos - everyone likes photos in threads! Only time photos makes me mad is when someone quotes a whole string of photos ad says - "those look nice" or something like that - thats just annoying - lol)

I couldn't agree more