purple leathter drooping

[Craig Brown]

i recently purchased a purple leather coral last saturday when i first put it in tank it stood straight up and spread out real nicely and now it just lays over and looks like it has a couple wounds. I dont know what to do any help would be greatly apreciated. Thanks...

[Reefing Madness]

In your other thread you said your water parameters were fine, can you tell us what those are?

[Craig Brown]

I do not exactly what they are i just go have them tested at the pet store I buy them from. today i had water tested again and my amonia was high. dont know the number but it was a dark purple and my leather now has white spot will put picture of it in gallery. I cant find anything dead or unhealthy other than leather. if it is my leather someone was telling to cut bad places off. Please let me know wat you think.

[twisted]

I mean this in no way to be harsh or condescending but, part of good tank habits is owning a good test kit and the ability to knock out a water change knowing your params before and after it. If amm is high you need to replace water.
How long has your tank been running? How do you acclimate?

[Craig Brown]

no problem im learning more and more about wat i need. Its been setup more than 2 months. I aclimate by leaving in bag in tank for 1 or 2hrs then poke wholes in bag and let it set for another hr. after discovering amonia was high i did a 25% water change. so should i cut dead parts off. or wat i know most of it is still alive.

[twisted]

Sometimes they look dead but are just shedding. I have a large one that does it every so often. The first time I thought it was dead.
Do some reading on drip acclimation. It's much better and less stressful. A word of advice, if you don't have a good skimmer, get one. Leathers are big irritants to many corals and can sometimes be challenging when you get into sps and others.

[Original Fin]

Craig,

Sometimes leathers will do that when they're not happy. It doesn't necessarily mean they are dead or dying though. Cutting pieces off right now could potentially make things worse, so I'd like to see what you're dealing with. Pics would be helpful .

As Twisted was saying, you've got yourself between a rock and a hard place without the ability to test key water parameters for yourself.
It's good that you did a 25% water change, but that may not have been enough. Depending upon how high ammonia was, you may need to do another large WC followed by a series of smaller ones. You have to let the numbers guide you though.




Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[twisted]

I forgot, sometimes they will look dead for days. Just keep an eye on it and have patience. :-)

[Original Fin]

Oh, and when you acclimate, floating a bag is good practice to equalize temp, but you never want to mix the bag water into your system. Mix the system water into the bag, and then net out your fish or coral, but discard the bag water. It can contain disease and parasites that can infect your whole system.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Craig Brown]

thanks again for more information will definetly try it out. I am worried about amonia though and wat is causeing it nothing is in tank that dead. so its only thing that can think that might be producing amonia. I also posted up pick of two pics of coral.

[Original Fin]

Ok, sorry about that.
Sometimes this Tapatalk smartphone app drops pics, so I'll have to hit the main website to see them.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Original Fin]

Is it possible the tank is still cycling? How long has it been set up?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Original Fin]

Here did you post those pics? I don't see them attached to this thread.

[Craig Brown]

2 months and everything else is doing great 2 clowns, 2 anemones, and torch coral and candy cane. plus a feather duster. If it would help i can post more pics. as far as filtering i run aquatic life mini protien skimmer, and two regular filters.

[Craig Brown]

Sorry for some reason these didnt post the first time.

[Original Fin]

That looks pretty much normal for an angry leather, but are those dark brown nodules part of it? If so, I would say that's necrotic tissue and should be removed. Is it possible that one of your anemones came into contact with it? That would surely do it.My concern is that since you haven't been testing the water yourself, that this tank may not have completely cycled yet...how would you know? If you added those two fish before the cycle completed, that would cause ammonia overload, and it would just serve to drag the cycling process on even longer. The way to be sure is to test for nitrites. If they show at all, the tank is not finished cycling.

[twisted]

I would just give it some time and make sure it gets enough flow so that nothing settles on it. Mine gets a good strong swishing flow and it stats happy and clean. Also move it up closer to the light

[twisted]

All that settled junk around it.... Try to get some flow across the sand but don't blast it. Dead spots encourage params u don't want