coral of the week { plerogyra } Bubble coral

[shred5]

Week #22 coral of the week { plerogyra } common name Bubble coral. This coral is pictured on page 70 and 71 of the book the Corals a quick reference guide by Julian Sprung .

Every week I will post a new coral and I want you to post everything you know about this particular coral. Everything from common names, how hardy they are, water temp, water flow, lighting, water parameters, fraging, spawning, related corals, scientific names, feeding, best ways to ship, etc. Post your pictures for identification. Please tell us about your system so others can duplicate your success. Also email me for request on which corals you would like to see in this section.

Dave Polzin

[Edited by shred5 on 05-16-2001 at 08:51 PM]

 

[Rovert]

Ok, here goes.

What I know is that it's about 10% larger now than it was when I first got it two weeks ago. It has also been opening in the middle, to reveal it's mouth:

I don't know if that's a good thing, or a bad thing. Today, it doesn't look as scrawny as it does in the photo, but I figured I'd include it anyway.

Tank metrics unavailable at the moment (my way of saying I haven't tested in over a week).

 

[Wolverine]

Here's a link to pics of our octobubble (P. sinuosa):

http://members.nbci.com/lcrandall/bubble.html

It's the first coral we got, and we've had it for almost 2 years.

We have it in a 46g tank with 2X96W PC bulbs and a 30W actinic NO bulb. The thing has grown a ton since we got it, and has recently started a war with our torch. Temp is 82 degrees, SG is 1.026. We haven't tested any other parameters in a while; last thing we checked were nitrates (0) and calcium (420), but that was about 8 months ago. We replace evaporation loss with kalk, and dose B-Ionic each morning.

At one point the coral had grown enough that a large portion of it was in an area of heavy flow, and the coral really didn't like that at all. It was very tempermental until we moved it out of that high flow area. We also noticed it had some negative interactions with some Xenia elongata in the tank. Surprisingly, the Xenia seemed fine, but the bubble was not happy at all until we trimmed that xenia away.

It gets some food that the fish miss, but we don't feed it directly.

Dave

I almost forgot to mention that fully open it's a little larger than a full-sized football.

 

[RicoJa]

Here are my pictures.

They love to be fed. The pictures below are of the same corals. See what happened when I started feeding it pieces of raw shrimp?

Rico.

 

[Mark]

Beautiful and Hardy. I've had mine for 3 years now. Loves the occasional shrimp I feed him.

 

[hesaias]

http://www.angelfire.com/on2/hesaias/bubble.html
This is ours
Somthing happened to it, and it looks poorly now. Barely inflated, and withered. Still it hangs on, eating small hunks of shrimp and fish. I hope it will return to the glory on the page above.
BTW, it was attacked by rogue favites.

 

[Rovert]

Hesaias, nice clear shots. What camera are you using? Hope the bubble perks up.

I noticed that everyone has a pearl colored bubble. Am I the only one out here with green?

 

[Playfair]

This is definitely one of my favs...

Had mine over 2 years now. As said, it doesn't like much current, and also would prefer lower light. I'm forced to have mine at the top, but even at an angle it spits out some zoo almost every night.

I used to feed it, but it grew so big that I havn't fed for the past year. When I had to move it once, the flesh over the skeleton had grown over a rock. Once separated, the little piece grew into a baby bubble!

Haven't purposely tried it, but I'm pretty sure that the flesh on the sides could be "severed" into sections to produce the same results, then the babies can be cut off when big enough.

Because it's so big now (close to 12"), I'm going to try and frag it by splitting in 1/2 or 1/3. I'm scared, but heard that it can be done. I would have traded it in, but won't even be able to even exchange for a 2" model! Any interest? lol

 

[Lutefisk]

Rovert - I like your green bubble ALOT!!!

I'm among the many that have the pearl colored ones. Mine is real happy in the bottom 25% of a 24 inch deep tank near a 10,000K 250 watt MH. It would eat solid food as often as I give it to it (has been 1-2 week). After reading some of these posts I think I'll cut back a little bit.

My bubble seems happiest (BTW - what is the metric standard unit of happy?) when it has plenty of light and just enough current to gently "blow" its bubbles.

I hope a lot of other people continue add their tips. I've only had mine for a month and I want to give him a good home.

Paul

 

[6-line]

I have a question regarding the Plerogyra sinuosa:
Mine hardly ever has the vesticles completely inflated enough to cover the feeding tenticles--at one point during the day (towards later evening) the completely inflated condition exists, but not for a long time. The coral is hardly ever expanded enough to cover the feeders. Anyone has this situation? Any thoughts?
Thanks

 

[Flatlander]

I have pics of mine on my page. Been with me for over 7 years now. Only direct feed it now and then. My multiple daily tank feedings seem to take care of it.

Loves light, the more the better. More light, more expansion.

My four clowns all call it home. Seems to do better when elevated from the sand and on a little angle. Mine now sits on a 4in. pvc coupler.

 

[joedelt]

mine i think is on its last legs, im not sure what did it but it rarely comes out and has spit lots of zoo. dosent seem to matter where i put it, im trying to get it tucked away so it will not get a lot of flow to see if thats the issue

 

[Lutefisk]

Playfair,

I sure hope that you will keep us posted if you decide to frag your bubble.

Thanks!