Leather Coral Polyps Closing

[gee_lo]

Just inquiring about my strange behaviors of my leathers. They seem to close their polyps every couple days, then stay closed for a day or so.

Is this normal? A Theil article I read refers to a process called "sliming". It that what I am witnessing?

Is this inevitable? Or is my care to blame?

Angelo

 

[Ralphyhp]

Hi gee_lo. My Colt leather use to do the same thing but not all days just one a month and when it opens, opens more bigger.IMO is a normal conduct of this corals,if your parameters are ok dont worry my friend.Ralphyhp.Take a look of my baby.

 

[Reefguide]

I'm with raplh... has happened to me with my finger leather... and I hope thats whats happening to me now with my new toadstool !! :?

 

[tinyreef]

ralphy,

that's a nice colt! 8) i love the red color! i'm very partial to softies myself and that red is gorgeous!. mine are all fuzzy peach color.

if i can ask what specific lights are you using? any special dosing or temperature?

 

[Ralphyhp]

Hi rcsheng. Thats my two years old setup a 55g tank. I use two 48" URI VHO'S actinics blue and two 10000k URI 48" daylights 440w of light. Dosing with C-Balance once a week saturdays,Kent Lugols solution once a week Sundays and Kalkwasser keeping calcium parameters on 450ppm, I start using combisan weekly to. I keep temp. on 78 to 80 with a specific gravity of 1.026 , PH 8.2 to 8.4 , Amonia,Nitrate, Nitrite,Phosphate, OOOOOOOO'sss. Now I move all this stuff to my new 125g tank. Im using 3 ushios 250w 10000K daylight MH with PFO's ballast and waitting for the IceCap VHO system with Two 60" super actinics vho's, to supplement my new tank with the beatiful actinic touch. Same dosing products, same temp., same gravity and same parameters.The new tank are doing well. Hope this help my friend. That way i keep Gonioporas budding on my tanks. Bye, Ralphyhp

 

[tinyreef]

thanks! that 55g looked superb but i understand why you tore it down. bigger IS better! :lol:

i'm thinking of switching to the actinic/whites for the next bulb change (likely 1 at a time). i'm running aquasuns and actinics, hmm.

good luck with the new tank!

 

[tinyreef]

gee_lo,

sorry to hijack the thread.

the leather's cycles of expansion may be due to your dosing schedule (if you have one). if so you may want to spread out your doses over a longer time (i.e. instead of 10ml/day go 1.5ml/day).

also it may be irritated by other tank inhabitants.

is the retraction/expansion truly regular or random (i.e. every 5th day and so on)?

 

[gee_lo]

Thanks rcsheng,

As for my dosing regime.....It is as follows:

I use Kent Tech CB to control my alk/calcium levels. The directions suggest 10ml per day/ per 40 gallons. I have a 60 gal. system so I supplement 15ml per day of each part.

I also dose daily Iodine, Iron, Strontium and Molybdenum. Some of these claim that you can add once a week, but i do a daily dose to spread out the dosing. So there are never any major additions of supplements.

The leather corals seem to go on a 2-3 day open, 2-3 day closed schedule. However my torch, cup, plate corals and my button polyps open every day without fail. It is a pretty stable system. Minor ph swings (3.3 day 3.0 night), minor temp swings: 81-79. SG is a solid 1.025. But the leathers just dont stay open. (let me specify that I have a toadstool leather, a finger leather, and what was called a "tabletop leather".)

Any ideas....

Angelo

 

[beerbaron]

i have found that my leathers do this realative to the amount of water flow they are in. try increasing the waterflow. it worked for me.
HTH
BB

Ralphyhp; beautiful colt. looks like a non photosynthetic coral its so bright. if i ever saw one that bright in the store, id buy it right away.