Copperband and sick bubble corals, dilemma.
 

I've had a Copperband Butterfly for maybe 6 or 8 months. I got him to wipe out an Aiptasia outbreak and he did the job.

Before I got the copperband I had a Bubble Coral which was just gorgeous, maybe 10" or 12" across and the centrepiece of the tank. Also one Octobubble (Pearl Bubble) coral which was thriving as well.

Several months back the bubble coral started to recede. All the other corals (softies, LPS and a few SPS) were doing fine. Gradually over 2 or 3 months the bubble coral went from perfectly healthy to mostly a skeleton with a few areas of intact tissue.

Now the past few days the Octobubble is not expanding the way it should, I can see it will start going the way of the Bubble Coral.

The thing about the Copperband is, it hunts out food particles (mysis) from within the Bubble Coral and Octobubble. After replacing my light bulbs, doing water changes, optimizing nutrient removal, and getting all my water parameters in line, I am left with starvation as the cause of these two corals going downhill. Starvation due to the Copperband stealing all their food.

Incidentally a Mandarin which had thrived for almost a year, and was eating mysis, died about a month ago too. There were no other fish deaths, my hypothesis was the Mandarin was being out-competed for food by the Copperband.

Anyway if I remove the Copperband, no doubt the Aiptasia will be back. And then if I am right about the coral starvation hypothesis, the Bubble and Octobubble should revive. But if I am wrong, I lose a beautiful Copperband, plus I get Aiptasia back, plus the two Corals die anyways.

So if anyone has any ideas I'd like to hear them.

I have had the same problem and in the end both my green bubble and my very large octi bubble died. The skeliton went from white to dark green as the flesh reseeded. I believed the problem to be an algae problem. I discussed this situation with many different people and they all thought it to be an algae problem. The strange thing is that neither coral showed the same signs at the same time, first it was one coral and then after it died it was the other. It also started at one end of the coral and worked its way to the other end, never showing on the entire coral at once. This all started after I bought the green bubble, so maybe it brought something to the tank.

Tom R