Help with leather coral problem

[Raptor72]

My leather coral has not fully extended for a couple of weeks now. It has been shriveled up and sort of a blotchy grey color. I've been doing regular water changes. I'm wondering if it has anything to do with my bio pellet reactor. The pump hasn't been tumbling the pellets constantly. I think I need more circulation through the reactor. Some hairy mushrooms that would regularly expand to about 4 inches are shriveled up also. Other shrooms and frags appear to be doing well, regardless.

As far as H2O chemistry goes, Nitrates and Nitrites are at 0. Calcium is at 440. PH is at 8.2. I've also been using a carbon sock. I've also been having a GHA problem lately that I'm combating with a sea hare and tuxedo urchin. For this reason, I don't even bother with Phosphate tests since the results will not be accurate. The last time I ran one, it read .25. I'm dumbfounded on what's causing this.

 

[ynnhoj86]

What's your salinity at?

 

[Raptor72]

Salinity is at 1.025

 

[scubabum1983]

if it was just the leather id say pest, with the mushroms too, id now say the tank has become too clean too fast. the lean nutrient change on two levels with the sock, and the reactor is stressing your coral. maybe take a step back. maybe take the reacor offline for a couple weeks, and try chaeto to compete with the hair and some manual removal coupled with some water chages. See with the change in practices if your corals improve.

 

[brettinteriors]

I agree, too clean. In my "clean tank" leathers,xenia ,mushrooms, daisy polyps,etc do poorly . In my do nothing to it tank the explode.

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[brettinteriors]

Do you run gfo?

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[SushiGirl]

We almost lost everything (did lose some stuff) in our softy tank when we put biopellets on it. We had to pull them before we lost everything.

 

[Raptor72]

I'm thinking of swapping out the biopellets for GFO.

 

[Newsalth2o]

+1 too clean. My leather has look real bad lots of time but I understand it is normal for them to go trough a period where they look bad and like sluff off algae that has grown on them. I have decided to let my softies espically mushrooms go. But my leather is huge probably 10" across. My tank is nutrient lean due to water changes, carbon, GFO, carbon dosing, but the hard corals are growing nice. What is the condition of your lighting?

 

[Raptor72]

I've been running chaeto in my sump for a while now. It grows extremely fast, especially with a LED spotlight that I picked up recently. I thin it out regularly.

 

[Raptor72]

+1 too clean. My leather has look real bad lots of time but I understand it is normal for them to go trough a period where they look bad and like sluff off algae that has grown on them. I have decided to let my softies espically mushrooms go. But my leather is huge probably 10" across. My tank is nutrient lean due to water changes, carbon, GFO, carbon dosing, but the hard corals are growing nice. What is the condition of your lighting?

My leather was about that same size. Lately it hasn't expanded and looks grayish. I was just getting ready to frag it. I took the biopellet reactor offline for a while and see if that makes a difference. The edges of my clam's mantle have been looking a little weak lately. My T-5's have been rotated out religiously.

 

[Raptor72]

It's been a week since I shut off the reactor and the leather is getting it's color back and it's "fingers" are finally starting to come out again. There just might be some truth to the water being too clean.

 

[SushiGirl]

Never mind, I'm repeating myself. Long week.

 

[Newsalth2o]

Are you feeding phyto or microvert or anything?? The leather should be mostly photosynthetic but some nutrients in the column do help. Glad its doing better. Again probably the best medicine we all can use is patience.......

 

[Raptor72]

Are you feeding phyto or microvert or anything?? The leather should be mostly photosynthetic but some nutrients in the column do help. Glad its doing better. Again probably the best medicine we all can use is patience.......

Not using anything besides Rod's Food and mysis in the tank. So now that I pulled back on the Biopellets, I'm still stuck with my GHA problem. I'm assuming that switching to GFO would have the same results.

 

[scubabum1983]

Get a competing algae like chaeto. It will compete for the same nutrients, without over cleaning your system. Where are you getting your water from?

 

[scubabum1983]

Gfo is a phosphate remover, bio pellets are nitrate removal

 

[Raptor72]

Gfo is a phosphate remover, bio pellets are nitrate removal

Really? So this whole time I've been combating nitrates when the GHA feeds on phosphates? :banghead: I've been running chaeto in my fuge and it reproduces rather quickly, as a matter of fact I'm always giving some away on this forum. I should have some GFO in the mail in the next couple of days. We'll see how that works out.

 

[scubabum1983]

Look at it this way, you have nutrients sequestered in your system, they are in the form of dissolved nitrates, phosphate, and silicates. Some of them are in a easier to see form of hair algae. The algae is loaded with nutrients. It grows and pulls more nutrients in the form of the hairs. By limiting the nutrients into the tank you hit it at that angle. By pulling the hair out you are removing some nutrients, otherwise it grows thick, the bottom doesn't get light, it decays and releases it back into the system as available nutrients. by having chaeto growing on a 24 hour cycle and your tank lights only running 8-10 the chaeto is constantly using nutrients, and your hair only can take it in 8-10 hrs. The trick to chaeto working is it has to get light through out the entire mass. Having a ton of chaeto that is dying in the middle because of lack of light is counterproductive. The center unlit mass dies and releases nutrients back, making it available to the hair algae again. If you then run gfo you hit the fertilizer aspect of the phosphate. By doing water changes with high quality zero TDS water you limit nutrients into your tank on a daily basis as top off. Bad water is just fertilizing the hair. I batted my in tank golf coarse for more than a year before I had it figured out

 

[Raptor72]

That's got to be the best written and easiest to understand paragraph I've read in my entire time of SWF keeping, professor. I appreciate you sharing your knowledge and experience.