Bubble Coral

[fmelindy]

it' funny, although I've often read in the aquarium literature that this is supposed to be an easy coral to keep, this has always been my experience with them too. I'd love to hear other's experiences. I have a feeling that long term success with them is dependent on acquiring a near perfect specimen. My experience with them has been that any shipping-induced damaged or recession will inevitable lead to a brown jelly infection with time. But that's just my experience. As I've said, I'd really like a nice cross-section of other user's experiences, too.

[Tangman]

Unfortunately , I agree with fmelindy, my experience with bubble coral has been the same, I've had them before ,they seem to do fine ,even grow to twice the size but after about a year to two years, they get this brown jelly infection ( starts near the base) and die off

[marie]

I have had a green bubble going on 2 years and a pearl bubble for over a year.
The one thing I've noticed about these guys is that they are very sensitive to allelopathy (sp?) (chemical warfare), any leathers in the system seem to make them go downhill fast

I don't understand these things either. I had one that was spectacular - about 12" across when open. It slowly started to recede from both edges until there was only a tiny (about 1" spot) with any life left on it - about 3 bubbles.

I was about to dispose of it, but decided to stick it on a small shelf in a non-visible spot until it died completely. Now, about 3 weeks later, it's recovering very well - it has reclaimed about 50% of it's skeleton and visibly growing every day. Sure happy I didn't toss it.

I have also seen a similar behavior from one at our LFS - is it possible this is abit of a cycle they go through?

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by dstasiuk

I don't understand these things either. I had one that was spectacular - about 12" across when open. It slowly started to recede from both edges until there was only a tiny (about 1" spot) with any life left on it - about 3 bubbles.

I was about to dispose of it, but decided to stick it on a small shelf in a non-visible spot until it died completely. Now, about 3 weeks later, it's recovering very well - it has reclaimed about 50% of it's skeleton and visibly growing every day. Sure happy I didn't toss it.

I have also seen a similar behavior from one at our LFS - is it possible this is abit of a cycle they go through?

The exact same thing happened with our bubble coral

[Doug]

The one pictured in my avatar was around 10 yrs. old when it died from an infection. However I believe it was due to an alkalinity problem, which is another story.

It loved intense light, from my 250w 65k Iwasaki, [plus window sunlight], in my 70g cube to its last home in my 225g with 400w Radiums. It was close to 2 ft. sq. when open in all its glory. My mated Blue Striped Cinnamon clowns called it home.

For current, I always found it liked enough to move the bubbles but not enough to distort their shape. I usually fed it some type of shrimps like mysis or before that the larger krill types. It also ate anything it could catch floating pass, including a chromis once.

Best to feed them in the evening light, when there light catching bubbles are mostly gone and all their feeding catchers are out waving around.

[Skimmerking]

yes Doug you had a beautiful bubble coral i can also vouch it love the light and Doug's was a white pearl one amazing and huge... mine was a green one that is on the down hill for some reason , I havent got the reason on what caused it to go that way. but since im 8000 miles away from it I'm hoping that Doug can help it out....

[ElGuappo]

Originally Posted by Doug

For current, I always found it liked enough to move the bubbles but not enough to distort their shape. I usually fed it some type of shrimps like mysis or before that the larger krill types. It also ate anything it could catch floating pass, including a chromis once.

Best to feed them in the evening light, when there light catching bubbles are mostly gone and all their feeding catchers are out waving around.

i Agree 100% except for the chromis thing havent lost one of those yet, ia m however missing a camel shrimp since adding the bubble.

As for the light i have a red sea max tank and the light is decent but not good and it does fine i have it mid tank.

[Myka]

Originally Posted by marie

The one thing I've noticed about these guys is that they are very sensitive to allelopathy (sp?) (chemical warfare), any leathers in the system seem to make them go downhill fast

I have noticed this as well. Leathers, zoos, and palys annoy the crap out of them. I've had my bubble for about a year now, and it did well right from the start. Mine used to be two skeletons attached to eachother. At one point the smaller of the two started to recede, and looked horrible. It was missing a lot of flesh by the timeI noticed. I turkey basted it, and there was a lot of sand down under the flesh in the centre. I think it was getting too much sand settling on it, causing it to recede. Once it started receding, the sand could get right under the flesh, which made everything worse. I separated it from the other skeleton, and started turkey basting it gently twice a day to get the sand out from under the flesh. The MAJOR factor was feeding it several Mysis shrimp per day. It bounced back in just a few weeks.

[ElGuappo]

i have had my bubble for about 6 monthes now and it has gone thru different stages of health (appearance wise). i have a toadstool leather coral in the near vacinity and mushies. he does fine

One thing i have noticed if you move coral it takes a few days to acclimatize to the new spot new flow ETC....

i use a small amount of cyclopeeze once a day and now he is doing better than ever. i rareley dose anything. just strontium once every 10 days and iodide the same.

When i feed cyclopeze i turn offf the pumps and skimmer. leaving my korialia on for small flow. this helps the corals get some to land on it thus feeding them wihtout thongs.

i also just removed a Ctenophore as i believe it was killing my ltoadstool. since i removed from the toadstool his is soing better in a matter of a day. but i will add picks to show the mark he left on the TS.

i know that is a little off topic but i have heard varying opinion on these and mine is that my coral green star polys as well do NOT like ctenophores. they tenticles must be sting ing them as they and TS would extent their polys until now that the sweepers are nolonger touching it. just a small bit of info i just went thru. hope it helps,