Is my leather dying?

nessyyy · Sep 30, 2019

Hi guys, I'm new to the reef tank world. I have read leathers will go black when they are dying. I have had these guys for about a week and a half, the finger leather never opened our showed polyps, and its having black spots if you can see in the picture. The devils hand stopped opening it's polyps about 5 days ago. It has a shiny surface. Am I in trouble, will they nuke my tank?

My parameters are fine, no ammonia and salinity is 1.024. Other corals including zoa and another small finer leather are thriving.

Thanks in advance.

lpsouth1978 · Sep 30, 2019

Not necessarily. Leathers are fickle beasts. They will go into funks from time to time and will "shed" their skin. This is their way of ridding themselves of algae and growing. Also, they can take some time to adjust to a new tank, like lower flow, and mid to low light. Make sure they have enough flow to remove the sloughed off material, but not enough to anger them. neither looks like it is dying to me, at least not yet.

nessyyy · Sep 30, 2019

lpsouth1978 said:
Not necessarily. Leathers are fickle beasts. They will go into funks from time to time and will "shed" their skin. This is their way of ridding themselves of algae and growing. Also, they can take some time to adjust to a new tank, like lower flow, and mid to low light. Make sure they have enough flow to remove the sloughed off material, but not enough to anger them. neither looks like it is dying to me, at least not yet.

Thanks so much for your quick reply, gives me a huge relief. Wasn't sure what kind of blackening I should be looking for and the black dots (I assume its polyps) were making me worry.

sfin52 · Sep 30, 2019

Welcome to the family.
Shinny film over leathers means it's going to shed. It will usually be bigger after a shed.

For the finger just try to move it to more flow area. They generally don't like low flow.

They will close up if they are touched , think you touched, believed that you touched or even if they believe that you thought about touching them. They are really Hardy and generally take rookie mistakes in stride. My favorite coral are leathers.

Hey @Katrina71 MORE LEATHERS!!!!!!!

Sako338 · Sep 30, 2019

Welcome to the community, I have no experience with corals, best of luck!

nessyyy · Sep 30, 2019

sfin52 said:
Welcome to the family.
Shinny film over leathers means it's going to shed. It will usually be bigger after a shed.

For the finger just try to move it to more flow area. They generally don't like low flow.

They will close up if they are touched , think you touched, believed that you touched or even if they believe that you thought about touching them. They are really Hardy and generally take rookie mistakes in stride. My favorite coral are leathers.

Hey @Katrina71 MORE LEATHERS!!!!!!!

Thank you so much, they are beautiful when they feel like being beautiful

nessyyy · Sep 30, 2019

Sako338 said:
Welcome to the community, I have no experience with corals, best of luck!

Thank you very much, was kinda nervous to post in the forum but everyone is so nice. I'm happy I joined

JoshH · Sep 30, 2019

nessyyy said:
Thank you very much, was kinda nervous to post in the forum but everyone is so nice. I'm happy I joined

Most of us are pretty harmless, except that @sfin52 guy, he'll creep you out with bug stories that will haunt your nightmares nightmares

Welcome to the community, hope to see a build thread of yours started up in our members tanks forum so you can share your new setup with all of us.

And don't forget, the only stupid question, is one not asked. If you do feel a little nervous about asking, feel free to try and search your issue in the search bar on the top right of the home page. If your asking it, odds are it's been asked before at some point or another. And you might be able to find your answer that way as well.

sfin52 · Sep 30, 2019

JoshH said:
Most of us are pretty harmless, except that @sfin52 guy, he'll creep you out with bug stories that will haunt your nightmares nightmares

Welcome to the community, hope to see a build thread of yours started up in our members tanks forum so you can share your new setup with all of us.

And don't forget, the only stupid question, is one not asked. If you do feel a little nervous about asking, feel free to try and search your issue in the search bar on the top right of the home page. If your asking it, odds are it's been asked before at some point or another. And you might be able to find your answer that way as well.

I thought you like my bug stories. They are such adorable creatures.