Common Name: Bubble Coral
Order: Scleractinia
Latin Name: Plerogyra sinuosa
Class: Anthozoa
Family: incertae sedis
Origin: Indo-pacific, Australia, Vietnam
Category: LPS
Care Level: Beginner
Temperament: Aggressive
Lighting: Low-Medium
Waterflow: Low-Medium
Placement: Low-Medium
Colors: White, Green, Blue
Growth Speed: Slow

What Are Bubble Corals ?

Plerogyra sinuosa is a jelly-like type of lps coral and gets it name because of its bubble like appearance. The bubbles are grape-sized and grow out of its skeleton, they are used to capture passing food particles. There is really no coral that looks like or even closely remebles this type of coral, it is extremely unique.

Bubble Coral Placement

bubble corals do best on the sand bed under par of about 100-150. You can place them on low rock work as well if it is flat and there is no chance of it falling over. You can glue the bottom of if you prefer to your rock work or even epoxy it. They have an aggressive sting and short sweeper tentacles at night and  should not be placed directly in contact with any other corals.  They do well under low to medium flow, you want to give them enough to keep their bodies clean of detritus but not so much that they risk flipping over as they can not flip them selves back and this will kill them in a few days.

 

Bubble Coral Names

Unlike many other corals bubble corals do not normally have trade names, we simply refer to them as bubble corals. Sometimes the color used to described them as well as terms like ultra and rainbow to distinguish the grade.

 

Color & Size

Bubble Corals normally arrive to our store 1-4”. In the wild they can grow up to 12” across !  This is rare in captivity and would take almost a decade to accomplish.  White are the most common color, blues and green are more uncommon. Orange varieties are extremely rare and we normally only find bubble corals with one color, not multi color like other corals.

Feeding

In addition to photosynthesis, these corals are have feeders that can consume a wide variety of foods. They will eat just about all foods they are given and love it.  They put on dramatic feeding displays and it can be so much to watch them eat. They pull food into their mouth and devour it. . If they are overfed they will simply spit it back out, its wasteful and just adding waste to your tank. We recommend target feeding with your flow off. First feed your fish and inverts so they don’t bother it and turn you flow off for 5-10 minutes. Distraction is key to allow the coral time to eat unmolested from other tank inhabitants.

Water Chemistry

These corals are tolerant of higher than ideal phosphate and nitrate levels, this is what makes them easy to keep. We always recommend keeping your aquarium within natural sea water parameters.  This means salinity of about 1.026, calcium 450ppm , alkalinity of about 8 , magnesium 1400.

Dipping Bubble Corals

Thankfully these corals do not not struggle with pests but its always good practice to dip them with coral rx or two little fishies revive coral dip before adding them your aquarium. You really should dip any corals you add to your tank.

Check out this video on how to dip corals 

 

Growth & Fragging

Bubble Corals don’t grow very fast compared to most lps corals and corals in general. This is kind of a good thing because once they are large they do take up quiet a bit of space and they can not be fragged

Special Care

Bubble Corals are generally easy to care for and have so special care requirements.  All species are photosynethic.