Bubble on birdnest base

[ratm909]

Hello all,

This is the only sps i keep. Its a frag i got very small a few months ago. It was growing like crazy and colors where very nice. I put a before and after picture. Sorry for the quality my iphone struggles with LED

Today when i got home an entire side of the polyps vanished. I have a small yellow tang, a mower blenny, two small azur damnsels and a midas blenny.

Im was thinking the mower blenny could of been hungry since i forgot to feed algae this morning (hes cleaned out the tank)

But then i noticed two "blobs" on the base. They slightly reflect light and look like a bubble. Any insights of what this could be?

Another reason i suspect the blenny is that my orange torch completely retracts every now and then and comes back normal after a few minutes as if something went for it. I might not be feeding the tank enough?

As usual your help is very appreciated by this newb.

 

[ratm909]

 

[Hentz]

Bubble Algae. Take it out and burn them with fire. They've taken over my tank!!!!!

Be extremely careful. If you pop them, they release thousands of spores and begin spreading and seeding in your tank. You'll blink an eye and have 100's lol.

I'd take the coral out of the tank and gently remove them. You usually are able to gently wiggle them, removing them. But do it outside of the tank lol.

Just DO NOT POP THEM!!! You've been warned :beer:

 

[ratm909]

I will do this tonight, could this have cause the missing polyps?

 

[Scorpius]

Bubble Algae. Take it out and burn them with fire. They've taken over my tank!!!!!

Be extremely careful. If you pop them, they release thousands of spores and begin spreading and seeding in your tank. You'll blink an eye and have 100's lol.

I'd take the coral out of the tank and gently remove them. You usually are able to gently wiggle them, removing them. But do it outside of the tank lol.

Just DO NOT POP THEM!!! You've been warned :beer:

I've heard yes and no on popping bubble algae. It's not a terrible nuisance if your nutrients are under control. Manual removal of this algae does wonders and is easy to do.

 

[ratm909]

I took it out and there was enough coraline to just cut under it it was fairly easy.

But is this associated to those missing polyps? Maybe something tried to get to the bubble algae and made a mess along the way?

 

[Scorpius]

The one picture looks like STN at the base of the coral.

 

[j_mazzy]

look for some sort of nudibranch

 

[Bambang_NG]

Use vinegar. Put it in syringe and shoot it. Make sure you dont hit the sps it will bleach. Its works for me

 

[leviburns89]

I vote for phosphate issues. If your phosphates were under control, the algae never would have grown in the first place, and secondly the birds nest would probably be thriving.

Check them.

If you have other algae growing in the tank, you have too much phosphate. Regardless of what a test tells you. Typically the algae will consume the the phosphate from the water column thus giving you a false negative

Sent from my SM-G900T using Tapatalk

 

[ratm909]

Yes I have been fighting phosphates. I can't measure them cause it's always showing zero (looking to buy a low rangeHannah checker)

I have no algae on glass but the Marco base rock is dark green, it's a crusty green algae that only the urchin seems to be able to remove.

I also use rowaphos in a reactor. That eliminated the long hair algae a few months ago, since the start the tank has been running on rodi water measuring in at 0 ppm (straight out the tube into a clean glass, will average around 3 once in the bucket since little particles get in there)

Anyways, I'm hoping the Marco rock will eventually run out of juice. Has I can't find other sources, I even rince my food in rodi.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[markalot]

Since this is your only SPS do you track Alk on a regular basis? Green birds are supposedly easy but they do tend to STN (slow tissue necrosis) if Alk rises too fast.

 

[ratm909]

Yes there has been small spikes (always under 1). I'm doing my first water change tomorrow back to coral pro. Aquaforest was measuring in at 8 8.3 on a fresh batch sometimes would drop below 8 after a few days. (Using calibrated meter)

I used coral pro when I started the reef, never had an issue, was thinking I could get away with a cheaper salt (in Canada it's 1/2 price of the coral pro). One thing I've learned about the hobby is always buy the best, in the end you will end up buying it anyways.

Not saying aquaforest is a bad product but being new to the hobby I feel coral pro worked best since all the stats are higher limiting the chemistry aspect..


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk