My poor white leather

[cougaran]

Well i picked up a beautiful wht leather at the last meeting. I had seen from day 1 what i thought was a hitchiker coral of some sort near the base of the coral. It was always in the same place, at least lights on/off from what i could always tell. I had the coral in a low light area to acclimate and i just moved it up to higher light the other day. Now it just hadn't seen the same since i bought it, not fully expanding. Tonight I look and i see damage to the stalks and i chked all my water parameters, this thing is checking out for sure. The xenia are all out and fine, whats wrong. Disease? It has some blk area of decay. So, I start searching thru RC(THANK U FORUM POSTERS) and someone mentions a leather going down hill and someone mentions possibly a nudibranch. DING!! I look in the tank and no longer see my old hitchiker coral, i pull it out and low and behold guess whats on the bottom of the coral rock..

He's huge at least an 1".

Now the question that remains. How bad off is my coral. Should I take an emergency frag of healthy area just to be safe. They are 2 seperate leather corals, each with an equal amount of damage.
Will they survive? Theres abit of the spiky inner materials of the coral that was on the ground.

The pics show the damage of each coral.

BTW, after being to a BRS meeting and they had a discussion about QT, I had promised myself no more corals w/o QT after that weekend. Of course the BRS and CTARS meeting was the same weekend..

So lesson learned. Anyone else out there reading this. QT and treat your corals!!!!!

P.S. Anyone want a wht nudibranch before he takes a ride on the porcelain express?? :lol: Maybe I can sell him on E-Bay-- Rare Wht Nudibranch--NO RESERVE-........

 

[Herpn]

Wow that is an Awesome nudibranch! It looks like a Frogspawn or a Hammer.... I might be interested if no one else is? I have a quarantine take with nothing in it but 2 small devils hands. So I might be able to keep it alive for a while. Kinda cool...
OK I do have some experiences with devils hands. I have had one for 2.5 years and I have seen mine go through Good Times an Bad. I think it might have a chance to recover although some one will probably say frag it. I would wait though to see if it gets better looking or worse.
My devils hand fell into my 12 inch + Carpet (I have no idea how long it was in there was on vacation) It turned black in some spots the days later it fragged off a few fingers and then bounced back and has been doing GREAT, better than before. The fingers it fragged are doing great too.... I just question the ability for the leather to grown down?
Good Luck.

 

[kroe]

Great documentation of this pest and it's effects!

Leathers are resillient... I would ride it out and hope for the best (though I must admit... if it were my super neon green sinularia I would frag it to be sure).

 

[cougaran]

Herpn -- You can have this coral eating monster if your serious.. He's still in his cup and alive. It is a cool looking creature, just wish it didn't need to eat corals to stay alive....

 

[mmd]

ewwww.
that said, I have had leather issues as well, they are very resilient. give it a week or 2

 

[ShiftNation]

I had a fleshy limpet eat away most of a leather and it came back fine . If your worried I would recommend a disease preventative dip .

 

[Herpn]

cougaran where are you located? I see it says Western Mass but......

Thanks.

 

[cougaran]

2 min away from aquadreams...It's still alive, I've got it in a cup, I havent replaced the water in the cup, I dont want to temp shock it. It seems fine. It can't be hungry yet after looking at my coral. The coral seems pretty much the same, not fully expanded like in the store, but not dieing either. So witht he way my other soft corals have grown in the tank(high nutrients) then maybe it'll bounce back quick.

 

[Herpn]

PMed you.

 

[wentreefgirl]

Leathers are resiliant. I have one that I cant kill. I keep lopping off the top and selling the frags at the lfs and it just keeps coming back. But my pulsing leather wont grow???????? No coral eating nudi on it eather,lol.

 

[XeniaMania]

Pulsing leather as in pulsing sinularia? I feed mine phytoplankton, zooplankton, and detritus and it keeps growing. Imma bout to start making frags outta that sucker soon.

Yeah, coral eating nudi's suck, I lost a rare xenia to one of those guys, they deserve to get flushed in my book..