Soft coral

[samba_dad]

He looks fine to me. I would say you don't need to worry.

 

[nervousmonkey]

I use my leather toadstool and Duncan corals as warnings that something is not right in the tank. For some reason, they tend to react quickly to water quality issues for me. The questions below are problems I have had to correct in the past to address my leather being closed. Thankfully mine has been extremely hardy and bounced right back after fixing issues. I agree with others that this could just be a shedding issue as long as he has good flow.

Do you have measurable NO3 and PO4?

Have you had any big alkalinity swings in the last few days of more than 1 dKH?

Is he getting enough light and flow? I have my leather toadstool at about 250 PAR and close to a power head that flows pretty strong just above the toadstool. It really surprised how much this guy likes fairly bright light and good flow.

Are there any euphillia (hammer, frogspawn, torch) corals that are too close to him?

If you are still having problems after a day or so, I would recommend at least a 15% water change. Water changes have almost always got my leather to bounce back.

Good luck!

+1 to the advice on having some corals to use as measuring sticks so to speak. I use GSP I have on an isolated rock, and birdsnest that are my "canaries in a coal mine". When they look unhappy, there is something going on, usually an alk swing like samba dad stated. Other issues I find with my "canaries" are lighting changes, even if I'm just playing around with lighting for a friend or something, and then flow.
Leathers need a lot of flow, well, not getting blasted, but flow that they can be in the path of, as they excrete a tremendous slime coat for protection and for catching food. If they don't have enough flow, the slime coat can't be washed off and they are forced to close to get the coat off of them physically. I don't keep my leather near anything else at all. If they sense another coral close to them, they release terpenoids as a defensive mechanism, which has been shown to kill other corals as far away as almost a foot, but most of the time, closer than that. Either way Boston, any leather coral can be lethal to other corals in a tank, through the release of terpenoids, as well as the shedding of their slime coat, which also contains terpenoids and will cause a pretty unhealthy amount of damage to a coral that the slime coat may land on, which is another reason for strong flow: to break up the slime coat.... Samba Dad has great advice; check to see if there are any of the issues in your tank that he has listed.

Good luck Boston! You should be fine, leathers are incredibly hard to damage.

 

[DeniseAndy]

When messing around in my tank my leathers are first to react. They close up for hours, days, even close to a month. Always come back. Since it is new, check for any critters bugging it. Lots light, flow, food.

As others have said, they are hardy, but can be a bit picky. My leather knows when people are coming to see the tank and close up nicely.

"Honestly, they are pretty" I say.

 

[boston02122]

Thanks for the advice. .