Bubble Coral Question

[bripen]

Not to go totally off topic, but has anyone ever had a large bubble coral (plerogyra sinuosa sp?) have its bubbles slowly detach from the skeleton? A string of 10 large bubbles have detached all but completely--they dangle by a thin thread--from the skeleton. In the skeleton appear to be new, tiny bright green bubbles. Will these old bubbles regrow a new skeleton? Help!

 

[Anthony Calfo]

Bripen... it could be several things at hand. Please start a new thread with pics if possible and a lot more info my friend: age of coral, any recent moves, what corals are near to it, what if anything you've been target feeding it, how often, water change schedule, etc.

 

[bripen]

Bripen... it could be several things at hand. Please start a new thread with pics if possible and a lot more info my friend: age of coral, any recent moves, what corals are near to it, what if anything you've been target feeding it, how often, water change schedule, etc.

Okay!Greetings from SE PA!--Sorry, Anthony--I'm new here and I have no idea on how to start a new thread. I've had the bubble coral 14 weeks now. I moved it approx. 5 weeks ago and it seemed very happy where I placed it, until this event. There are two hammers,a frogspawn, and a trachyphyllia nearby, but nothing within 6 inches. I occasionally target feed my corals--maybe every ten days or so--usually with Marine Snow or Zoo w/ Selcon or Cyclopeze. A 5% water change is done once every 2 weeks.
My display tank is 75 gal with a 30 gal refugium underneath. The display has approx. 90 lbs. live rock and about an inch of sand. The refugium has 5 inches of live sand, some rubble, and tons of chaetomorph and some caulerpa--on a 24 hour light schedule. Easy skimming with a Aqua-C Urchin and Maxijet 12. Lighting is 2x150w 10K MH, 2x130w 230/260 Actinic PC's, and 6x1w white lunar lights. I use an 8w UV filter contained within a 170 gph canister filter with charcoal for 6 hours a week.
The system has been set up for a little over 6 months now, and remained fallow for the first 3 months. The only fish in the tank are a tomato clown, a fridmanni dottyback, and a scribbled rabbitfish.
Any advice is appreciated. Sorry, I don't have a digital camera yet--maybe Santa will be good to me! BTW...I have both your Coral Propagation Handbook and your Invertebrates book and find them to be invaluable! Great job---I just wish you had covered Anemones in the Inverts. Ah well--Maybe soon? Thanks again. Brian

 

[redrooster]

Well I don't know anything about bubble coral except what it looks like. I can tell you that 5% water change every 2 weeks isn't even close to enough. I was changing 35% a month vs your 10% and most were telling me that I wasn't changing enough water. Anyways this will bump you back to the top at least.

 

[Anthony Calfo]

your feeding is too light my friend (needs to be 3-5 times weekly bare minimum) and the food you are using (Marine Snow) is quite weak (not dense nutritionally at all).

Your water change schedule is so modest as to nearly be useless I regret to say. Please look at sometjhing closer to 10-20% weekly minimum... especially with hungry corals like LPS (inclusing your bubble indeed)

Thanks for the kind words too about my Inverts book... it was deliberate to leave all stining animals (anemones, corals, jellies) for a dedicated volume. It will be some time before we see that though... the writing and printing of hoby books pays well under minimum wage (literally on average) and requires huge amounts of money to print and wait for the funds to come back. We must go slow, I regret.