Leather coral and sps?

[rworegon]

I have a rather large Toadstool Leather Sarcophyton on one corner of my reef. I've had it for a long time and its getting rather large. I have been losing a few sps frags from my frag rack lately and I was wondering if it might a result of the toadstool releasing some kind of toxin into the water. There is a return that flows past the toadstool towards the end wall of the tank. This happens to be where I have a frag rack mounted and where I have been losing some sps. One was a green monti cap, I thought those things were bullet proof, a tricolor acro has lost most of its color, and a sailors warning milli bleached almost overnight. The only thing I can think of is that everything that bleached is directly downstream from the toadstool. Oh yea there is also a Joe The Coral acro very close that isn't dead but has almost no color to it.

Is it likely that this beautiful toadstool leather is poisoning my sps?

 

[Dugless]

Have you tested your water to make sure parameters are stable?

 

[Chris Lakies]

Leathers shed skin to get rid of sediment or what ever else. Could be toxic.

 

[rworegon]

Have you tested your water to make sure parameters are stable?

Yes, top off with Kalc keeps things pretty stable.

Alk is steady at 8.6 Hanna
Cal is 500 Red sea
Mag is 1400 Red Sea
Ammonia and Nitrite both at 0
Nitrate a little high at 20 but been working on that with water changes and vodka dosing.

PH swings between 7.8 at night and 8.2 daytime

 

[dowtish]

I had a toadstool that quite large and I had some zoa polyps that had begun to encroach up the stalk of the toadstool. They stopped at a perfect line around the stalk and i began to think the same thing as far as it may be releasing toxin to fend off the zoas. I had a few SPS RTN around that time, so I just opted to remove the toadstool.

I cannot say if it helped or not, but it made me feel better.