Bubble coral staying wide open all day

I've had my bubble for 6 months and it has tripled in size (now size of salad plate when open). It is a hearty, active eater at night trying to catch as much brine shrimp as possible when I feed the tank inhabitants. It also happily and readily accepts bigger morsels of defrosted Marine Cuisine" cubes. I don't target it directly because it takes too much time to absorb these bigger morsels into its center mouth which leaves it vulnerable to the marauding damsel fish looking for more food once their own has been consumed or sucked into the filter.

My question is about what these bubble should look like at rest during the day. All the threads here are about them not opening. Mine opens wide all day every day. In fact it looks like a large flower. The bubbles are inflated all around the perimeter but the center is an open area with a "mouth" which pools slime around it and opens at night during the fish food frenzy to "swallow" whatever falls into it. It can bubble up fully and will do so if startled or it's trying to guard its stash from the fish, but eventually it always opens up again to its standard position of bubble-flower. In the dark it recedes and sometimes goes completely in but either that's rare or it happens when the house is asleep.

Is my bubble normal? I really would prefer the bubbly bubble coral look instead of this bubble fringe. It has grown so much and stays open so wide all day it is the main feature in the tank. I really can't keep it from eating extra every day since it is an opportunistic feeder.

 

Can you post a couple photos of your bubble coral? Maybe a photo of it during the day and another photo at night would be helpful.

 

Will try to upload pics just as soon as I figure out how to do that.

 

Hi and Welcome to 3reef,

Sign up for a photobucket account (free), upload your images to photobucket, choose get links, copy the img code from the photobucket image and past it into your post.

Or choose reply, under submit reply you will see an option Manage Attachments, that will also allow you post an image.

Hope that helps.

 

Here is a pic of mine to compare with. Mine looks like this all day. At night it shrinks a little and the feeder tentacles come out.

 

nice tank vtec! Both mine stay open all day too.

 

very pretty tank! The bubble looks very healthy to me!

oops, didn't realize the tank wasn't the op's lol

 

Mine opens up a lot during the day too.

 

Here is a closer shot of my bubble. It's gotten about 6 times bigger in 10 months. Thanks for the compliments.

 

Sorry it took a few days, but here is my bubble all stretched out after feeding this evening. Obviously it is not normal compared to the big bubbly masses you all graciously have shown me. But as a whole it appears really healthy with lots of active tentacles and the long streamers too and not just at night. The center is a beautiful striped tissue that radiates from the mouth. When it bubbles fully it really just seems it is folding upwards like a meat eating plant. But afterward it relaxes back to this. It appears as though it is stretching out trying to cover as much real estate as possible, sending out the longer streams of tentacles stretching toward a neighboring coral you can't see in the picture. That is amusing because the nearest coral is about 6 inches away, but this bubble knows it is there and always has those stinging tentacles stretched out toward it. The bubbles are a pretty pinkish green but as it grows outward more and more it will cause problems with other fixed corals nearby. Any suggestions would be helpful. I can't say much about water quality because I don't monitor it. I have a 29 Biocube and an aquarium guy comes every 2 weeks. So far all the parameters have been maintained according to him. Nothing has died, there are about 6 fish (bottom dwellers and swimmers) and a few crustaceans and 1 shrimp I've had for 6 months. While I know to improve conditions I should monitor the water, I am not the hobbyist (13 year old son is), I'm just the mom who feeds the fish. And as such I have grown attached to the corals that I feed directly so am interested in their biology. Thanks again for any insight you are able to share.

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