Dyed Leather Corals

[seaner]

At a fish store I visited recently, they had a purplish pink leather in one of there tanks. I asked the store owner several questions about the colouration and scientific name, but he was extremely vague with his answers. He was asking to much money for it, so i didn't end up buying it. I went on the Internet later that day, in a attempt to find it, but I was unsuccessful. Later that week, I was over at a fellow reefers house trading corals. I asked about a leather in his tank. He said it had purplish pink colouration, but faded after a couple of months. He thought it was due to insufficient light (2x 250watt MH with HO Actinic supplements). He had bought it at the same store that I was at earlier that week.

How are you able to tell if a coral (specifically a leather) is dyed?

 

[siren]

What you found was probably a type of dendronepthia. They usually come into the hobby in a wide variety of dazzling colors, but are extremely difficult to keep. If that is what your friend had, then the lighting was too much. They are non-photosynthetic and require lower lighting and supplemental feeding.

 

[seaner]

What you found was probably a type of dendronepthia. They usually come into the hobby in a wide variety of dazzling colors, but are extremely difficult to keep. If that is what your friend had, then the lighting was too much. They are non-photosynthetic and require lower lighting and supplemental feeding.

I have 3 dendronepthia in my tank. It wasn't one of those. It looked like one of my leathers except really colourful. My dendronepthia requires really low light and phytoplankton to survive. My fellow reefkeeper had high light, and didn't feed phytoplankton. He must of had this leather for more then a year, and it had tripled in size.

 

[gh0st]

I have unfortunately seen a few dyed softiues. Usually colt/cladellia's but also some toadstools, etc.

A picture "may" help, but seeing the bag the coral was shipped in is usually the clincher. Dyed corals tend to "leach" some color into the water during shipping. Sometimes seeing tissue after a fresh fragging can help as well.

 

[Jadams]

LFS's do that to sofites all the time. I have a LFS that sells dyed corals as well. Honestly, its fairly common in this hobby. :lol:

I have heard the same as your buddy, people buy them and after a few months, they just loose their died color look and go back to normal.

Ubber fail in this industry if you ask me!