yellow fiji leather help!!

lizie58

New member
We have had a leather for one month. It came out two days after we got it and was very happy;fully extended everyday. Two weeks ago it turned a dark brown and wouldn't open up as much. Now it is droopy and dying. Please HELP!
 
tank is about 8 months old. is a 55 gallon with a 29 gallon sump. has a nova t5 high output just put new bulbs in. 4 54 watt bulbs water parameters all good except nitrate which is 20ppm have been doing water changes but cant seem bring it down. everything else in tank is doing well.
 
leathers for the most part are very hardy, i say let it be and maybe add a little more flow to his area. he should be fine. mine get droopy sometimes also and in a few day they are back to normal.
 
can you have anenomes and leathers together? we did for awhile but recently lost our anemone. think it starved because clowns wouldn't let it eat. but also read that anenomes and leathers sometimes dont get along. could this b a factor?
 
I doubt the anemone starved to death-what type did you try?Many will do fine without ever being fed-I only feed my bubble tip anemones when I want to force a split.Your tank is still new,in terms of reef tanks & your nitrates are a little on the high side.I'd give the tank more time to settle in,before attempting another anemone.,as they like excellent water quality,flow & lighting.As for keeping them with leathers,I've never had any problems-unless they are in direct contact,in which case one will sting the other.HTH
 
What is your alk/calc at? I've seen leathers turn to mush in no time when the alk dips a little too low.
 
anenome was bulb tip was about 2 an half inches when got him after couple months was about 6-7 then slowly shrunk when clowns started hosting. leather was at opposite side of tank. was battling pH for about week and a half when leather started going down hill lowest was pH was 7.9
 
I wish I had an answer for you. I've tried many times to keep a yellow leather. They would do great the first day or two.. then they always got droopy.

However, I've never had a problem with having anemones and leathers in the tank together... just as long as the anemones don't touch the leathers.

If your clown fish aren't feeding your anemones you can feed it yourself. Just drop some food in it with an extention needle (can buy at fish supply store)... my anemones seem to love prawns.
 
feed anenome silversides was up to bout half inch. then it slowly shrunk and tried feeding bout quarter inch clowns always bothered it and knock food out before it could swallow it. it always took food instanly when clowns didn't host it.
 
Sorry to hear that you lost it.

Yellow Fiji leathers are notoriously difficult leathers for many and require high light and a lot of flow. They almost always die if cut or fragged due to high rates of infection and are generally not a good canidate for propagation. The best thing to do for a troubled fiji leather is give it good random flow but not blast it with a powerhead and hope for the best.
 
Also most our problems seem to have started when out lfs stopped carrying oceanic salt and we now use red sea i think.
 
I agree with coralfarm. The yellow leather is a difficult leather to keep. I went through two that did the same thing. Beautiful at first and died within 60 days. They had the same brown infection.

Luckily I got some extra liverock with a yellow frag attached. It is small, but has been doing great. Go figure.

Lizie, I think you did the right thing by cutting the infected area. Don't give up on the yellow leather, it is such a beautiful coral.
 
I have a yellow leather too. I've been trying to read up and see how they do if you frag them. I guess not so well huh.
 
The rock I received apparently had a leather that was removed. There were two nickel-sized frags about a 1/2 inch apart that are doing great. I don't know what particular species or genus it is but it seems to frag well.

I keep them up high since I only have PC's (260 watts I think) with a good, but not heavy current flow.
 
I have a fairly large and extremely healthy Fiji Yellow leather. It gets hit with a fair bit of current and it is sitting right at the top of my tank under 400W Mh's. I've had mine for about two years or so now. Maybe less. Can't remember really. It started out about 3" across. it's now a good 10" in diameter..

I used to sell a lot of these corals when I worked in the industry and they are VERY hit and miss sadly.

For fragging what has been passed onto me is to take a razor blade and trim a small section of the edge off. Just like skinning an apple or carrot. Don't cut with shears or scissors. make it a clean one piece cut. Then place the piece in a tray with crushed coral or something else it can attach itself to. Once it has grown onto the crushed coral you can then attach it to something else.

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