what's up with my leather coral?

[shirley knott]

the tank is still quite new - 4 months - and is an 80gallon (340litre) setup with mostly just fish and shrimps, snails and live rock. once a week i change 50L water from an RO. skimmer and external filter, 4 powerheads.

ammonia 0, nitrite 0, nitrate 10, ph 8, 80F, 28ppt salinity, 0.25 phosphate.

a week ago i got these two leather soft corals - a cinularia and a lobophytum - in the shop they were puffed out like balloons, but look at them:

help!

 

[wrightme43]

Salinity is very low. In a reef the general consensus is 35 ppt.
Also leathers are very picky about placement in my experince. Sometimes just a few inchs one way or the other makes all the diffence in the world.
Also leathers take time to aclimate and become adjusted to new conditions.
If it was my tank. I would slowly raise salinity, after haveing my refractometer or hydrometer checked against another one. What I mean is if you are using a swing arm plastic hydrometer. Take it to LFS and ask them to check it against a known accurate refractometer or at least against a known hydrometer.
Hope this helps. Steve

 

[shirley knott]

more pics

thanks, i'll do that. are they dying, or do they bounce back?

here's some more shots of the tank:

 

[wrightme43]

Cool. Yeah they are real hardy in my experince. Hey how is your sun coral doing? Are you feeding it every day? Do you know alot about them? If not, there are a bunch of people on here who do and would be glad to help out with its captive care requirements. They require special treatment as I am sure you already know. Steve

 

[reedman]

Leathers will also just retract all their polyps and shed their mucus occationaly too. Even in a mature, healthy tank they do this. Keep an eye on it, raise your salinity slowly.

Did you check the parameters (temp, salinity, lighting) of the tank it came from? It could just be in shock. If it came from a tank that was high lighting into a lower lighting, salinity of 35 to 28, or temp of 78 to 81....any one of these could cause the reaction you are seeing.

 

[shirley knott]

Hey how is your sun coral doing? Are you feeding it every day? Do you know alot about them? .....They require special treatment as I am sure you already know. Steve

is that the orange one? beautiful, isn't it. i know very little about it, bought it for the appearance.

the shop guys said to syringe it food twice a week, but it seems o be thriving on just the daily frozen cube + a few flakes the tank gets every day - the one time i used a syringe, the food just rolled off, though some stuck in the gaps between the lumps.

 

[Beeba]

When I first started my aquarium about 18 months ago I bought a leather just like the first one and it did the same thing. The LFS and everyone here thought for sure it would bounce back but after two weeks it was just a puff of dead coral. When touched it just fell apart. Take action and watch it carefully. I watched and waited and it didn't make it. Not my favorite way to spend $80. Just like my tank everything else seemed to be doing great. I hope you get through it without any casualties.

 

[Caesar777]

Shirley, you should read up on sun corals. Their true name is Tubastrea. It's not thriving... The spaces between the "lumps" are just skeleton, so it isn't eating what falls there. Have you seen it open up? They need to be fed at least every other day, directly.

 

[wrightme43]

Yes, Sun Coral are very very pretty. They are also different in that they get no food from light. They actually dont need any light at all. If you can maybe try this. Take and cut a 2 liter in half. Keep the cap and drill a hole in it for small dia. tubing. Putting the screw threads up, silocone some small flat glass beads or rocks to the bottom (cut open) part. And silocone the tubing into the screw on cap as well. What you will do is drop the half a 2 liter on top of the coral sealing it to the sand. The air will bubble out the tube and it will fill with water. Then take a syringe and squirt brine shrimp or other frozen food into the container. This is not my idea, I got it from someone else on here, and if I could remember who I would give them credit.
Steve

 

[shirley knott]

hmmm

well that sounds like an excellent method, but my sun coral is atop the rocks - should i place it down on the sand then? is it really not looking well - looks pretty good to me.

 

[Sloppy Joe]

Awsome Idea Wrightme!!!!

 

[wrightme43]

Thanks alot, its not my idea though, I am just passing on something someone else came up with, and I am too dumb to remember who to give the credit too. LOL
Shirley it looks ok however corals seem to be like birds, once you notice a problem its very very close to too late to do anything. Yes if you can move your sun coral down lower and try to feed it more often it will reward you by looking better and sometimes keeping its feeding tentcles open alot more as well.

 

[aprilstory]

Thank you wrightme for that info. I just got a sun coral and I haven't seen it open up yet. I've tried to feed it mysis directly via syringe. I've only had it 6 days. I'll have to try that method.

April

 

[NaH2O]

Shirley knott - does the sun coral open up at night to feed? I know someone that keeps one of these, and during the day it is closed up like yours, however, when the lights are off it opens up and gets fed.

Steve is right, these are nonphotosynthetic, so it doesn't need to be in high light to live. Here is a link to the Lunar Lander, which uses the 2 liter bottle for feeding.

April - welcome to Reef Frontiers!!!

 

[aprilstory]

Thanks for the link and the welcome.

April

 

[shirley knott]

update

a couple of weeks later, and one has fully recovered. the other i still hold out some hope for, and have spotted a low-calcium problem i am treating.

oh, and i made the feeder, thanks!

 

[Caesar777]

Great job! Looks very nice.