Open brain and pearl bubble

[alexmederos]

Well here they are. First corals to go into the tank. Can anyone please tell me if that bubble looks good? It was shipped to me and it doesn't look like the picture I saw. Or any other bubble for that matter. Should I add mag, cal, or anything to help it out?

 

[xanthurum]

Probably just needs time to settle in.

 

[Reef Frog]

The pearl bubble's polyps are retracted but I think I see them hiding. This is normal for many new corals. Make sure it's not in a particularly high flow area. It may take a little time for them to expand fully.

Make sure your parameters are "reef ready" and stable. 1.026 salinity.
Calcium: 420
Alkalinity: 7-9dKH
Magnesium: 1350

Or close to those ranges. Don't blast either with highly intense light. Both corals will benefit from occasional feeding. Good luck.

 

[alexmederos]

The pearl bubble's polyps are retracted but I think I see them hiding. This is normal for many new corals. Make sure it's not in a particularly high flow area. It may take a little time for them to expand fully.

Make sure your parameters are "reef ready" and stable. 1.026 salinity.
Calcium: 420
Alkalinity: 7-9dKH
Magnesium: 1350

Or close to those ranges. Don't blast either with highly intense light. Both corals will benefit from occasional feeding. Good luck.

So the bubble coral is not doing well. The "skin" is pealing off the skeleton and still hasn't expanded. The parameters are all in order and the brain is doing great. It responded to some target feeding of shrimp but the bubble didn't

 

[Reef Frog]

Sorry to hear you're having problems with it. Don't be too quick to remove the skeleton. I've seen bubbles at my LFS go bad after introduction and then recover with some polyp expansion much later. It seems living tissue can persist for a while in those crevices. Good luck.

 

[cougareyes]

Definitely make sure your alk is in order, lps will not tolerate low alk. Try dusting the brain with some coral food, maybe even some mysis or a small chunk of krill; feeding it will strengthen it up.

 

[rockslide123]

Beware of overlighting and too much direct flow. LPS like good flow but too intense and not in just one direction. I have a volleyball sized bubble that lives on the bottom of my tank under reefbreeder lights set just around 50%

 

[alexmederos]

Beware of overlighting and too much direct flow. LPS like good flow but too intense and not in just one direction. I have a volleyball sized bubble that lives on the bottom of my tank under reefbreeder lights set just around 50%

I have only my aquatop z9 with the directional water jet and one koralia nano 240 opposite of the brain. And my zetlight zt6600 [(which I have no clue as to how to make it run the full day cycle) just stays on "daytime"]. Purchased it thru LA.com which they credited my account for. But damn I hate wen things die!

 

[rockslide123]

i see no one else throwing advice at you so I'll tell you what I did.

I have a 120 with around 25 gallons in my sump all LPS. I'm not an expert by any means but I have had a freshwater tank on and off since I was 8 and a reef tank for about 10 years and I can tell you I had issues just like you describe when I first started that cleared up entirely when I did these things:

1. Started dosing alk and calc (adjusted based on testing)
2. Measured alk, calc, mag, salinity parameters every 2 weeks
3. Adjusted the mag level manually every 2 weeks
4. Regular water change schedule (5 gallons a week, vacuum the cap out of the gravel)
5. Added irregular flow (using inexpensive jebao pump). I had no luck getting hydors to stop and start regularly to create this kind of flow
6. Slowly ramped my LED lights (reefbreeder) gradually (over weeks) up to a ten hour a day schedule at around 60% max (white and blues)
7. Added chaeto in one chamber of my sump under LED spotlight from Ace Hardware.
8. Added an ATO so salinity would remain constant.
9. Set my temperature to run 78-80°F
8. Bought a reef controller to keep everything consistent.

Also, I spent some time talking to people and researching clean-up crews (snail types). Decided no crabs. They love to steal food from LPS mouths sometimes tear them apart from the inside.

Added 2 sea cucumbers (the brown ugly ones) that spend all their time cleaning under rocks. I don't have a clue why people claim they will poison your tank or get in your powerheads doesn't appear to me they have prayer of climbing the glass to get to them.

This was probably a $700 "investment". I'm sure others have achieved the same results other ways but my tank doesn't stress me out anymore and everything is stable. Now I test monthly and rarely need to adjust anything.

Best advice I have is consider any changes you make very carefully for unintended consequences before and after you make them. If something is out of whack carefully consider how rapidly you should correct it. Even horrendously out of line water parameters are often better corrected gradually.

Hope this helps. Best of luck. I hate seeing LPS look like that.