Bubble Coral with one dead Bubble

[AMANIQU77]

OK, so my Bubble coral is healthy. So are the rest of my softies and inverts. The only thing is, there's this one bubble out of the whole coral that is dark brown in color, extended way up, and looks dead. I can see liquid in the dead bubble.

OK, so what's up with that?

Should I snip that or pull it out or what?

Thanks.

[reefrunner69]

Can you show us a pic? It's possible it's damaged, either physically injured or stung by another coral. I would not try pulling it off or fragging it in any way, with the exception of branching types, LPS corals are problematic to frag. You will most likely simply cause greater injury and increase the chance of infection.

[AMANIQU77]

OK, I had to turn on my day light for this. This is usually how my bubble coral looks like while asleep at night. Then, within the same night, it expands into a cluster of tentacles. But...see that balloon afloat higher than the rest?



Again, this is a night shot. The Bubble is doing really well. It expands fully and beautifully in the morning throughout the day with bubbles bigger than grapes, then deflates and then expands into beautiful cluster of tentacles.

Nitrates 0, Phosphates 0.5, SG 1.026, Calcium 410ppms, pH 8.1, kH 250 ppms, 79 - 81F.

Here it is the next day. It just woke up.

[melosu58]

That`s really weird. I`ve never seen that before. In the daytime it looks normal?

[reefrunner69]

Can you identify which bubble it is during the day? It looks to me as if there is trapped air in the bubble, during the day it might look normal cause it's inflated with air and as the other bubbles inflate with water it is pulled back into the cluster.

You might want to move it lower and also not perch it on it's side like that. The crown around the corallites will become irritated easily if touching rock and begin to recede. You should also double check your alk. 250 ppm is very high, target 150 ppm or 175 ppm at the highest.

Cheers
Steve

[AMANIQU77]

Originally Posted by melosu58

That`s really weird. I`ve never seen that before. In the daytime it looks normal?

In the daytime, it looks normal. At night, this stuff starts to raise. It's weird. It looks dead because the rest is pinkish white, then this is dark brown to a shade of gold.

i noticed that the left 1/5 of it (in the area of that floating..whatever that is) is retracted most of the time. I have a hunch it is because of water flow. I will try to lessen it.

Also, it doesn't look clear enough but the bubble coral is actually very far away from the nearest surface to which it can create contact. It's hard to see in the pic. Nonetheless, I am planning to relocate the coral somewhere wherein it is pointing up wards and not diagonal.

I will keep y'all posted.

PS: kH, according to the instruction on the tester, is recommended anywhere above 200 ppms. Please elaborate the 150 ppm standard that you use. Thank you all for responses.

Originally Posted by AMANIQU77

PS: kH, according to the instruction on the tester, is recommended anywhere above 200 ppms.

What brand and was it manufactured for SW use? That is completely wrong.

Please elaborate the 150 ppm standard that you use.

Natural SW values are along the line of 1.5-3.0 mEq/l alkalinity. So to determine ppm to mEq/l you divide by 50, ie.. 50 ppm = 1 mEq/l.

Your value of 250 ppm = 5 meq/l alkalinity. This is almost double that of NSW and far too high. If you target the higher side of NSW for alkalinity @ 3.0 mEq/l, your target ppm is 3x50 = 150 ppm. Keeping a slightly higher value (up to 175 ppm) is fine but double will cause you many problems.

Cheers
Steve

[AMANIQU77]

Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Saltwater Carbonate Hardness.

It says in the instructions that 1dkH=17.86 ppm CaCO3 and a good level is > or = to 220 ppms.

Anyone else has Aquarium Pharmaceuticals with instructions that may be a bit different from what was provided on mine?

This is how the package of the tester looks like:

I know exactly which kit you have been refering to but their suggested target goal is completely off base. They have recently updated their website and the instruction links are no longer available so I could not tell you why they've recommended it. They do however contradict themselves on one page....

What effect does water hardness have on the aquarium?
Click that sentence from this link....
http://aquariumpharm.com/en_us/faq/w...stry_gh-kh.asp

At the bottom you will note...

Many marine aquarists try to maintain a KH level around 140 to 178-ppm (8 to 10 ° dKH).

Cheers
Steve