Newtankdude

I noticed that for the past couple days, my bubble coral hasn't been inflated much. The shrimp wont climb on it anymore, so it can't be that. please help me.

Newtankdude

FLB? Agsansoo? Mike? Armadillo? C'mon, I don't know how much longer the coral will last, I need an answer ASAP!

Newtankdude

...please help please.....

Mike

More details please -

• how long have you had this coral?
• what type of lighting do you have over the tank
• water parameters? alkalinity/calcium levels, pH, temp, nitrate, etc
• are you doing supplemental feedings?
• any other corals in the tank?
• last time you did a water change - how often do you do water changes?
• how much water flow in the tank?

Newtankdude

I've had the coral for like....A month now.
The lights I have are...T5 8W illuminator plus (2)( I think their 10,000k) and one T5 8w Illuminator blue
ph is 8.0 nitrates are 10, nitrites 0, ammonia .05 temp is between 78 and 81, Alk was fine last I checked, I dont have a calcium kit.
I feed it a capfull of Phytoplankton once everyother day (store it in water bottles)
I only have one other coral, thats a Xenia coral
I do I think 10% water change every Saturday
The water flow on the coral is low, I have it on the opposite side of the pump outlet.

Thanks for looking into this, I hope you know whats going on...

JGoldinger

Bubble coral is a very hard to keep coral. They are made up of water basiclly. I would test and see what your calcium is in your water.

Can you take a picture of it?

Mike

Not sure what's going. How many inches away from the light is the bubble coral? You definitely need a calcium test kit when keeping corals. You say that alkalinity is fine - but what was the reading on the test kit? You prolly shouldn't be getting an ammonia reading and try to lower the nitrates (change/clean filter pads). How big is your tank and are you running a protein skimmer? I've heard that xenias can be toxic to certain coral and if you're not using activated carbon and/or a protein skimmer you may have issues.

agsansoo

Bubble Corals normally require moderate lighting, though some specimens accept bright lighting. Mine love very bright light, right under my metal halide light. . Water movement should be low to moderate, and any powerheads should not be directed toward this coral. It will rip the bubbles.

agsansoo

As for feeding, they say "bubble coral is photosynthetic, but seem to benefit more than many LPS corals from occasional direct feeding of shrimp or other meaty food. Feeding up to once a week will result in faster growth". Though I never direct feed mine, that because I'm a BIG over feeder of my tank LOL . I feed so much baby brine shrimp and cyclopeeze, corals never go hungry.

Newtankdude

I'd say about 12in away from the lights, I dont remember alk, I had to add Half a teaspoon of Bicarbonate to raise it some. My tank is 12ga, and I don't know if I can get a skimmer for it, Its a Biocube. I have activated carbon, I'm going to replace it this weekend though.

As for directfeeding, I dont know were to feed it.
The water movement is very low, I moved it farther away from the powerhead.
I'm going to get a calcium kit this weekend also.

Newtankdude

I looked around on the internet and it looks like a stony bubble coral...I'll try to get pics today.

Newtankdude

I think that the problem was it's position. I moved things around, moving my Xenia farther away from the coral (thats wat xenia profile said on one site) and moved it farther away from my shrimp. Hopfully, if Xenia do release chemicals, its far enough away to not effect the bubble much, and hopefully, my shrimp wont climb on the bubble to get to food anymore. I'll keep you posted if its condition changes.

Newtankdude

It deflated again...I think I'm gonna go get that calcium kit tomarrow...I hope its still alive by the time I fix it...