Trouble with Leathers

camor101 · Nov 27, 2015

New to the reef world,3 months into it. I'm having trouble with leathers (toadstool, devil's hand). All other coral are happy & doing well, but no success with leathers! Any advice?

Wiz · Nov 27, 2015

What other corals you keep

camor101 · Nov 27, 2015

Polyp Duncan, 2 bulb anemones, blastomussa, zoanthus, flower pot coral, torch, ricordea yuma…..and I forgot to mention only leather I've had success with is the cabbage leather I have. But the devil's hand and toadstool never opened up like they were in the reef shop I bought at.

took the devils hand back and 1 week later it was back to normal at the shop. Held on to the toadstool to see if anything would change with it…but nothing at all

Jeff Kurtz · Nov 27, 2015

Keep in mind that it's normal for many of the leather corals to go through phases during which they retract their polyps, develop a waxy coating over their tissues, and then shed the coating. You can more or less expect this to occur when a specimen is moved to a new system or under any form of stress, though it will also happen periodically under the best of conditions. Sarcophyton spp. toadstools will exhibit this behavior quite frequently.

camor101 · Nov 27, 2015

Jeff Kurtz said:
Keep in mind that it's normal for many of the leather corals to go through phases during which they retract their polyps, develop a waxy coating over their tissues, and then shed the coating. You can more or less expect this to occur when a specimen is moved to a new system or under any form of stress, though it will also happen periodically under the best of conditions. Sarcophyton spp. toadstools will exhibit this behavior quite frequently.

Thank you. Still new to the hobby and a lot of learning to do. Same thing they told me at the shop "give it some time, it's not dead".

camor101 · Nov 27, 2015

Wiz said:
What other corals you keep

Polyp Duncan, 2 bulb anemones, blastomussa, zoanthus, flower pot coral, torch, ricordea yuma…..and I forgot to mention only leather I've had success with is the cabbage leather I have. But the devil's hand and toadstool never opened up like they were in the reef shop I bought at.
took the devils hand back and 1 week later it was back to normal at the shop. Held on to the toadstool to see if anything would change with it…but nothing at all