Limp Leather coral !! Please help!!

[addicted_2_reef]

I just picked up a small neon green leather coral from the LFS lastnight. I got home from work and it was falling oveer!! bent in the middle of the "Trunk" and looking not too happy. I had it at the high part of my tank under 175MH (10 gal) could this be from too much light? I move it to the bottom of the tank a few minutes ago. Nothing else in the tank looks bad!! HELP please!

-Brian

 

[Fat Surgeon]

Brian,

The light may have been too much and I stress MAY have been. Try putting it in a moderate flow and mid-low level in the tank. My suggestion is to do some research on your particular leather to find out what amount of light, flow, etc that it needs in order to thrive, not just survive. Remember that leathers are touchy corals and it may take a couple days or so for it to pucker up. Hopefully someone on here with more Leather knowledge can help you out more.

 

[addicted_2_reef]

I looked up what I could on it and found conflicting information(Like a lot of info on the internet) but, I should be ok in moderate to high light. Anyway, I moved it and it seems to be picking up a bit. I'll give a couple more days. thanks

 

[Fat Surgeon]

Brian,
How's it looking? You know, the other night when I posted here, I did'nt notice that you have a 175 watts on a 10 gallon, is this right? If so, try moving the MH if possible to 12-15 inches above the tank so you dont cook everything in it. BTW, what do your temps seem to run with that much light? I could be totally off the mark here, but 17.5 watts per gallon seems like a tremendous amount of light, nearly twice the amount recommended for even SPS corals, which by far require the most intense light of all corals. Let us know how it is looking. Perhaps the reason why it wasnt doing so well was because in the LFS, the light was not as intense and may have shocked it in your system with so much light. Hope it is doing well now.

 

[addicted_2_reef]

I have the MH about 12 inches off the water now. It doesn't seem to raise the temp that much. We've had some real cool weather the past couple of weeks and it ran about 1 or 2 degrees cooler. it stays at around 80 to 82 degrees. I don't have a problem with algae and all my corals look great. The tank I have now is only a starting point. I have a 40 gal acylic that I had made and I'm working on the stand now. It should be ready in a month or two.

The light a the LFS was 2-400 watts MH about 18 to 20 inches off the tank. they have on of those tanks that the water flows over the sides of the tank. Its about 12 inches deep. I watched the coral at the store for about 6 weeks. I figure that if it lasts in their tank then it should be tough enough for mine! I have a piece of Moon coral( pineapple coral) that didn't look so good at the bottom so I moved it to the top of the rock work and now it looks great it loves the light.

I've talked to a lot of people that run the same amount of light over their tanks and with a lid they do run higher temps. I took the lid off and just replace evaporation with R/O water.

The Leather seems to be shaping up. It's not bent over and the color is coming back. The only thing I haven't seen are the small "arms" that come out on it. But, I assume that with time they should.