Yellow Fiji Leather

[fishheaded]

I purchased a yellow fiji leather and acclimated it. At the fish store it looked beautiful with polyps extended. Its been in the tank for almost 6 hours now and has no polyps out and is scrunched up, sometimes it will open a little bit and then close again. Water parameters check out, flow is good and I placed him pretty high up. (64w pc over 10g) How long do these guys need to acclimate? and polyps to extend?
Thanks

 

[SkiFletch]

With leathers it's usually either immediately, or a few weeks. If water conditions vary from where they were previously kept (especially lighting and flow), they can be tempermental at first. They may shed a bit, perfectly normal . As a double check, if memory serves, you have a bunch of Euphillia in the tank, and if so, make sure they aren't close enough to the leather to sting it

 

[fishheaded]

With leathers it's usually either immediately, or a few weeks. If water conditions vary from where they were previously kept (especially lighting and flow), they can be tempermental at first. They may shed a bit, perfectly normal . As a double check, if memory serves, you have a bunch of Euphillia in the tank, and if so, make sure they aren't close enough to the leather to sting it

Gotcha. Thanks, yeah i am starting to see dimples popping out this morning so hopefully polyps will extend. The leather is pretty high up so no problems with the hammer & frogspawn. When shedding is it more of a brown coat?

 

[SkiFletch]

Yeah, it'll look more dull and gray than brown though.

 

[fishheaded]

Yeah, it'll look more dull and gray than brown though.

Cool . It finally opened up and is starting to stick out its polyps. I will post some pics soon! Hey Ski, I read that they can release a chemical when they are "unhappy", is it quite rare that they do this or can it happen even just by being too close to a coral? I'm a little worried..

 

[SkiFletch]

It's called Alleopathy. Each coral has a means of defense against it's neighbors. Most hard corals use stinging tentacles or sweeper tentacles to dissolve their neighbors on contact. Softies (especially leathers) will secrete chemicals into the water column which inhibit calcification. They do this normally when not-threatened at a lower rate. When sensing danger from nearby corals, they will secrete these chemicals much more often.

 

[fishheaded]

It's called Alleopathy. Each coral has a means of defense against it's neighbors. Most hard corals use stinging tentacles or sweeper tentacles to dissolve their neighbors on contact. Softies (especially leathers) will secrete chemicals into the water column which inhibit calcification. They do this normally when not-threatened at a lower rate. When sensing danger from nearby corals, they will secrete these chemicals much more often.

Yikes . Is it harmful to my tank? Or will the AC30 with chemipure and filter floss take care of it? and of course water changes..

 

[SkiFletch]

Waterchanges and carbon are the best ways to fight them. Tough to say how much of a problem it'll be in your tank, every aquarist's experience is different in this regard.

 

[fishheaded]

Waterchanges and carbon are the best ways to fight them. Tough to say how much of a problem it'll be in your tank, every aquarist's experience is different in this regard.

Ahhh hopefully the chemipure and weekly waterchanges will be sufficient enough to keep the tank running smooth. I believe it releases small amounts already, is it almost like white mucus looking?

 

[SkiFletch]

No, even more unfortunate, the alleopathic chemicals are invisible to the naked eye, and not testable by simple means available to us aquarists (something tells me you don't have a mass spectrometer )

 

[fishheaded]

No, even more unfortunate, the alleopathic chemicals are invisible to the naked eye, and not testable by simple means available to us aquarists (something tells me you don't have a mass spectrometer )

Ahh great! I actually do have a mass spectrometer, right in the middle of my living room. Well hopefully all will be well, he seems pretty happy right now so I'll let him be.
I will post a pic in the journal section.
Thanks for the help ski

 

[fishheaded]

I noticed my leather hasn't fully opened up for 2-3 days now. I will come to the tank and the polyps will be out and other times it wont. I believe it is shedding. It has somewhat of a brown film over it. Should I blow the leather with a turkey baster or should I let it do its own thing? I will try to get a pic up.

 

[BigC]

They tend to sulk from time to time, retract their polyps. I have a good flow over my leather and because of this I dont think it has shedded mucus yet as its being constantly cleaned of any detrius that settles on it. I would rather suck up the mucus from the leather rather than blow it off, don't let it swirl around the tank as it does contain chemical compounds that if it settles on surrounding corals it will kill or damage them.
Regards
BigC

 

[superman]

yellow fiji leathers can be very sensitive to being touched, so they will take a long time to come around. Be patient, they are some of the more sensitive soft corals.

 

[fishheaded]

Thanks guys, I hope it will make it. Here is a picture of it. I sucked up the brown stuff. Could it be dying?

Here is what it used to look like: