Welp...
I rejoined the hobby after 10 years out of it. I have a 40 gallon breeder mixed reef that's been running for 5 months. Mostly zoas and montis... nothing difficult.
I decided I wanted a neon green Sinularia coral. I ordered off of LiveAquaria and spent my money and waited. The next day I receive my coral. The bag is so cloudy I can't even see the coral. Typical soft coral behavior I rationalize to myself.. I float the bag. Drip acclimate. Put the finger leather in. It looks sad but nothing atypical for a leather I say. The next morning I wake up and half the coral has turned black. It's a maricultured coral. All my other corals are still out in full force. I panic..... I google what do you do when your leather coral turns black? Almost all the answers say frag it. So I cut the leather coral from one solid piece into 4 smaller pieces.
I pull tank water out and frag it out in a seperate container of tank water. I put the frags back in and the next day half of them are black. Well... we all lose a coral here and there but now my other corals are not happy. My other leathers are down right mad with no polyp extension. I run out to buy some activated carbon and after two hours it seems to help. I learned leather corals can release toxins when injured. Now I sit here and ask myself why did I risk my whole tank just for one coral I wanted? I found it interesting is when things went downhill, I may have made it worse by intervening. Has anyone else panicked like me and done something to their tank to make things worse?
I rejoined the hobby after 10 years out of it. I have a 40 gallon breeder mixed reef that's been running for 5 months. Mostly zoas and montis... nothing difficult.
I decided I wanted a neon green Sinularia coral. I ordered off of LiveAquaria and spent my money and waited. The next day I receive my coral. The bag is so cloudy I can't even see the coral. Typical soft coral behavior I rationalize to myself.. I float the bag. Drip acclimate. Put the finger leather in. It looks sad but nothing atypical for a leather I say. The next morning I wake up and half the coral has turned black. It's a maricultured coral. All my other corals are still out in full force. I panic..... I google what do you do when your leather coral turns black? Almost all the answers say frag it. So I cut the leather coral from one solid piece into 4 smaller pieces.
I pull tank water out and frag it out in a seperate container of tank water. I put the frags back in and the next day half of them are black. Well... we all lose a coral here and there but now my other corals are not happy. My other leathers are down right mad with no polyp extension. I run out to buy some activated carbon and after two hours it seems to help. I learned leather corals can release toxins when injured. Now I sit here and ask myself why did I risk my whole tank just for one coral I wanted? I found it interesting is when things went downhill, I may have made it worse by intervening. Has anyone else panicked like me and done something to their tank to make things worse?
