Bubble Coral Retracting. Help?

[Sacohen]

I have a metallic green bubble coral that has been doing great for about a month to a month and a half and it is now retracting and looks terrible.

Everything else in the tank is doing great.

Salinity 1.023
Ph 7.8
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 15-20 (A little high)

Corallife Lunar Aqualight Compact Florescent
2-65 watt 10,000K Daylight bulb & 2-65 watt Blue Actinic bulb about 2 months old.

Actinics on 14 hrs/day
Daylight on 8hrs/day

Any suggestions please???

Thanks;

Steve

 

[EllieSuz]

Have you been feeding it? If not, it just might be starving.

 

[kurt_n]

Or that Flame Angel could be snacking on it.

 

[kostasv]

i think that 1023 salinity is a little bit low. i would say 1024 as minimun.
also tseck flow and lighting. bubble doesnt like intense light and strong water flow.
finally try to feed it kril at night with closed flow.

 

[sqwat]

I bet its the angel never trust a flame angel in a reef tank it looks ok not great it looks as if something is picking at ut.get rid of the angel they are not reef safe

 

[EllieSuz]

My Flame Angel has never nipped at a coral in the four or five years I've had her. Maybe some do, but certainly not all of them. My only problem with my Bubble Coral is that it's outgrown my tank:

Once a week I feed it mysis or whatever the rest of the gang is getting.

 

[usmc121581]

If I remember right most angels come with a risk when adding to a reef tank, some will start to snack on soft corals while others will never touch a coral. It's a risk that some take

 

[Sacohen]

Salinity is usually 1.024 to 1.025
The flame was only added about a week ago and the bubble started showing signs of deflation about 2 weeks prior to that.
I also pretty much live in the room the tank is in and watch it all the time. I've never seen him eating any of the corals.

The lights were a little further back on the stand and when I saw the coral starting to retract I moved it forward thinking it wasn't getting enough light.

I don't feed it directly. I feed the tank Prime Reef and I figured it got what it got.
I just got back into the hobby, but I had a 125 years ago and never directly feed my corals and they all did fine.

 

[EllieSuz]

Sorry, but you really need to feed this coral. There are a lot of them that get what they need from particulates in the flow, but the Bubble does not. Other corals that need to be fed directly (IMO) are the Sun, Frogspawn, Hammers, Duncans, etc.

 

[kurt_n]

While I won't argue that bubbles don't benefit from feeding, since it's only been in the tank a month and a half I'm thinking it might be something else. Seems logical it isn't the Flame since it started deflating before the Flame got in there (but keep an eye on it, nonetheless). Do you have hermits? I lost a couple bubbles due to dumb clumsy hermit dragging their shells across them, damaging the tissue.

 

[Sacohen]

Thanks for the input.
I'll start feeding directly, but I'm not sure there is any saving this guy right now.
I don't have any of the other ones you mentioned that need direct feeding.

No hermit crabs in the tank, but some huge Mexican Turbos that don't seem to care what they crawl over. I haven't seen them by or over the bubble coral.

I spend a lot of time watching the tank, it's relaxing. I have it in my Man Cave so I sit there watching TV and looking at the tank.

 

[wildman926]

Corals in the wild dont get target fed, they are 100% photosynthetic and water content. Its a bonus to feed directly, but not necessary at all.

 

[Sacohen]

Good point Wildman.
Even though the point of a tank is to recreate the wild as close to possible, it can't always be done to 100% replication so some corals may need the extra treatment in captivity.

 

[sqwat]

Flame angels. An be perfect for years andthen just go doge many documenty cases of this but there is an exception to all rules and just cause youres doesn't that doesn't mean his isnt nipping the bubble.no angels are reef safe.