Hello all. My tank has been stressing since I made the mistake of cutting a mushroom polyp off its rock while still in the tank. This poor leather was resting next to it. I've since cleaned the rock with salt mix (and washed) but this poor guy looks stressed. And my nitrates are still kind of high (10-20 ppm). All the other coral is relatively happy. I'm leaving for a few days and wondered if I should pull the toadstool in case he dies while I'm gone. Am i overreacting? Looking for advice. :(
Leather toadstool
- Thread starter sigs19
- Start date
mariobrothersleeve
squirrel
Yep, over reacting. Your nitrate levels are coming from somewhere else. I cut mushrooms all the time to make them produce faster, you will have 2 mushrooms in no time. Keep up with w/c's and cut back on feeding in half. Turkey baster your lr before w/c's and calm down! Watch for phosphate too as trates and phates go hand in hand. Good luck
ErinCahir
Sausage Wrangler
Your leather could also be shedding.
Smitty
Reef pro
Yeah, leathers go thru stages where they look like crap, but like Erin stated, it's probably shedding.
2XAl
Salt Addict
i have three leathers in my tank that through the course of even one day can go from looking awesome to, well, an old leather shoe, and back again in the course of a couple hours. i agree that your mushroom cutting isnt the source of the problem. what kind of rock is that and how long has the tank been running? what and how often do you feed, full parameters would help target the issue.
chichimom79
reef junkie
The rock washing probably stressed it more than the mushroom cutting did. I had my colt coral shrivel up for a few months after I changed lights and it finally came back. Leathers are pretty indestructible. LOL
The rock has been in the tank since the beginning. The leather was actually my first coral. Tank is 7 months old. I dose with instant ocean once a week. My calcium levels stay pretty stable by doing that. I recently started using a new coral food that I bought in a LFS. Unfortunately since I'm on the other side the country now I can't tell you the name of it. It's a fairly new product as I'd never seen it before. I'll have my wife get the name for me.
I did add 10 new frags to my tank last Tuesday - right after I started feeding (2x per week) with this new "food". There were 12 frags to start with, but 2 didnt survive past the first day (shipment stress). Currently there are no fish in the tank but I have four smaller fish sitting in my quarantine tank. I'm running a marineland C-350 on my little 29g. I've done about 6 20% water changes in the last 48 hours (prior to my traveling). Nitrates were up around 100ppm at the start. I got them down to the 10-20ppm as mentioned previously.
I can't do much until I get back Saturday anyway, but plan on doing a water change again. Any recommendations on how much?
I did add 10 new frags to my tank last Tuesday - right after I started feeding (2x per week) with this new "food". There were 12 frags to start with, but 2 didnt survive past the first day (shipment stress). Currently there are no fish in the tank but I have four smaller fish sitting in my quarantine tank. I'm running a marineland C-350 on my little 29g. I've done about 6 20% water changes in the last 48 hours (prior to my traveling). Nitrates were up around 100ppm at the start. I got them down to the 10-20ppm as mentioned previously.
I can't do much until I get back Saturday anyway, but plan on doing a water change again. Any recommendations on how much?
2XAl
Salt Addict
Definitely doesnt look gone to me- can you get a better pic of the base? When mine sprout new leathers I guess they could be called blister like
Sammydog
Reefing newb
I had a toadstool that did something similar. It had been growing really quickly then one day just went soft and lay over. I wondered at the time if it was anything to do with the mushrooms that were encroaching on it.
At first I assumed it was just shedding the mucus layer as it regularly did, but after it was down for a few weeks I got worried.
It never looked like it was rotting though, so I kept an eye on it and left it in the tank. After about 2 months the polyps came back, but the surprising part was more polyps started coming out of the base of the leather. A bit more time passed and the stalk actually split into two.
I moved the original head elsewhere and its going great and now there is two established heads coming from the old base, and possibly a third that I noticed last night.
You say yours has blisters, the new polyps on mine started like little pimples. They looked like that for quiet a while before there was obvious polyps. I will try and find some photos for you.
I wouldn't be removing the leather though unless it looks like it is starting to decay.
At first I assumed it was just shedding the mucus layer as it regularly did, but after it was down for a few weeks I got worried.
It never looked like it was rotting though, so I kept an eye on it and left it in the tank. After about 2 months the polyps came back, but the surprising part was more polyps started coming out of the base of the leather. A bit more time passed and the stalk actually split into two.
I moved the original head elsewhere and its going great and now there is two established heads coming from the old base, and possibly a third that I noticed last night.
You say yours has blisters, the new polyps on mine started like little pimples. They looked like that for quiet a while before there was obvious polyps. I will try and find some photos for you.
I wouldn't be removing the leather though unless it looks like it is starting to decay.
Ok, so I wanted to post a couple of update pictures. First, it looks worse IMO. Even the head is turning a little (in color).
The one thing I forgot to state previously was that I had a change in my T5 lights right around the time things starting going south. I had noticed a white piece of plastic protectant over the light shield/lens (see pic). I removed it so I know the light intensity increased quite a bit afterwards. Could I be burning the leather?
(The website isn't letting me post more than one pic per post. Might be b/c I'm doing this on my iPad). Sorry for the multiple posts.
The one thing I forgot to state previously was that I had a change in my T5 lights right around the time things starting going south. I had noticed a white piece of plastic protectant over the light shield/lens (see pic). I removed it so I know the light intensity increased quite a bit afterwards. Could I be burning the leather?
(The website isn't letting me post more than one pic per post. Might be b/c I'm doing this on my iPad). Sorry for the multiple posts.
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chichimom79
reef junkie
Can you put some kind of screening over that side of the tank to diffuse the light a bit over it? Like I said, when I changed lights from Metal Halide to LED, my colt coral was closed and limp for appox two months before recovering. They are tough as hell. With your other corals looking fine, I suspect it will come back, but you never know.
AnthonyTheNewbie
Reef enthusiast
Leathers are damn near indestructible. If you were to a cut off a piece of the top, it would regrow a entire new stalk, and the part you cut would just heal up. Don't give up on it yet, give it a while to recover. One of my leathers looked like you are describing for a while, I put it and the small piece of LR rubble it was attached too in a plastic cup off to the side of the tank by itself, and within a couple of weeks it was healed up, fully extended, with full polyp extension. Don't give up on the coral, it will surprise you lol. :)
