Sarcophyton laying on side

Hi all,

Did a quick search before posting this, haven't found much on the subject yet. My issue is with my sarcophyton growing sideways. Ideally, I want this thing to be standing straight up like a tree, but for some reason it prefers to lie down with its top brushing the rock and some adjacent mushrooms in their corner of the tank. I read somewhere that sometimes this behavior is due to it not being in an area that has enough flow, the odd thing here is that it seems to be leaning towards the corner that has lower flow.

To give you an idea of my setup, I'm running a nano cube 6 with the stock powerhead nozzle. The sarcophyton is roughly in the center, where I figured at least some of the current would be heading. I have a smaller rock with mushrooms, positioned directly underneath the powerhead nozzle. I put them there because I read those particular corals like lower flow. The highest flow area appears to be where the rock that has my star polyps on (the tank is facing me, the rock with the star polyps is on the left-hand corner near the glass). I had moved the sarcophyton closer to the center because it began lying on top of my mushrooms and they weren't getting the same amount of light as before. A day after I moved the sarcophyton to the middle of the tank, it actually was standing straight up, looking pretty happy. A couple days later, it went back to lying on its side.

I've noticed now that the point where it's anchored to the rock appears to be eroding away (the flesh of the stalk). Near the base there is a bunch of white mucus, looks a bit like a clump of thin jelly. Is the coral suffering from something that would also be contributing to its preference to lying on its side? The jelly-like substance and the eroding away of the base is a very recent issue, it had been lying on its side for weeks before, looking pretty happy, but just on its side. I'm not sure if two issues are related. Should I attempt to trim off like an inch of the stalk and reattach it to the rock?

Here are a couple pictures. Sorry they aren't the best quality, I used my phone's camera.

 

Are you using phosogaurd or a product to remove phosphates from your nano?
If you are then take it out. Leathers don't like phophate removers.

Just a thought.

You also may want to post your water perameters
Are you using ro/di water ?
Water temp?

How long has your nano been set up?

All these things can help

BTW WELCOME to 3REEF.....You will love this site

 

I only have a bag of carbon in there. The tank is currently 3 weeks old and the water params have tested 0 throughout this entire phase. I haven't been testing it daily for 3 weeks so it's possible I missed any spikes.

I dont have an RO/DI unit and I obtain all my saltwater from the local aquarium, so I've never mixed any. I top off with purified bottled water (it says filtered via RO on the label).

The leather has been pretty happy in there since it I put it in the tank. It originally came from a pretty filthy tank that was poorly maintained and was growing on its side there. I figured after I started up my new tank it might do better, seeing as I needed to move the coral out of the old tank. I had it in my tank about 4 days into the cycle and its been laying on its side since. Sometimes the head floats up off the ground and gets large, judging from the way its always looked it appeared pretty happy, full polyp extension during the day, etc.

After seeing that tear in the tissue (it's more like an erosion of the stalk, as if something like acide was dissolving it) a couple days ago, I've always assumed that it was fine, aside from the fact that it was laying on its side. Should I try placing it in a higher flow area? I was thinking that I could move my star polyps out of the high flow corner (this spot I think gets the highest flow) and move the mushroom here. I didn't really want to move the star polyps to the lower flow area because they seem pretty happy where they are

 

3 weeks? i think thats a little early even for leather corals. i put mine in at the three month mark. my 2 cents

 

might try putting the stem in the sand bed. Mine was a bit like that when he wasn't happy with the spot I put him in. After a few days it stopped dripping, then I glued it to a larger rock. They like flow going across the top. Won't hurt to try it.

 

is the stock to long to support the head?
idk just a guess

maybe to much flow across it

 

iv never heard that before. i run carbon/phosguard for my chemical filtration on my rsm 130. my toadstool is huge and happy. why would they not like it if you ran phosguard or ran a reactor with phosban or rowaphos?

 

Here is what I have read...This was after I was told not to use it by my LFS, they said it was bad for leathers in particular?

I have never tried it so I dont know for sure

Link:

Chemistry and the Aquarium​

Here is a part of the link about Phosguard​

Inputs of Aluminum in Reef Aquaria: Phosguard
Many aquarists claim to see undesirable effects on corals when using Phosguard, made by Seachem. Many aquarists have attributed that effect to released aluminum, since it is largely composed of aluminum oxide (possibly with silicon present too). In the first phase of testing that hypothesis, I examined whether Phosguard does indeed release any aluminum into solution.
Table 4 summarizes the results for a serious of samples in which commercial Phosguard (75 mL) was placed into contact with aquarium water or freshly made Instant Ocean artificial seawater (500 mL). The samples we allowed to sit in closed plastic containers. Once every 3 days or so the containers where gently shaken for a few seconds. Aliquots were removed, in some cases filtered through a 0.45 μm filter to remove “particulates”, and the aluminum was determined by ICP (without acidification). The concentrations were determined by comparison to standard made by spiking 0.5 ppm aluminum into aquarium water or Instant Ocean artificial seawater (which had been shown earlier in this article to have no detectable aluminum). All of the samples had a clearly definable emission peak in the appropriate place, although the lowest sample (0.06 ppm) is close to the limit of detection.​

Table 4. Aluminum Concentration in water samples exposed to Phosguard
Water Sample
Exposure Time
Filtration
Aluminum Concentration (ppm)
Aquarium Water
none
none

≤ 0.05​

Aquarium Water
1 week
none

0.37​

Aquarium Water
1 week
0.45 μm

0.06​

Aquarium Water
5 weeks
none

0.71​

Aquarium Water
5 weeks
0.45 μm

0.12​

Instant Ocean
none
none

≤ 0.05​

Instant Ocean
1 week
none

1.11​

Instant Ocean
1 week
0.45 μm

0.13​

From the results in Table 4 it is evident that Phosguard does release aluminum to the water, and that the majority of this is present in particulate form (that is, that it is removed on a 0.45 μm filter (although that does not demonstrate that it was originally released as particulates).
In order to determine if these results are caused primarily by fine particles that come with the much larger Phosguard particles (typically about 2 mm spheres), a batch was rinsed very thoroughly with RO/DI water (8 times, with each rinse lasting about 1 minute and each rinse volume comprising about 20 times the solid particle volume). These rinsed Phosguard particles were then exposed to aquarium water as above. The results are shown in Table 5.​

Table 5. Aluminum Concentration in water samples exposed to rinsed Phosguard
Water Sample
Exposure Time
Filtration
Aluminum Concentration (ppm)
Aquarium Water
none
none

≤ 0.05​

Aquarium Water
2 weeks
none

0.25​

Aquarium Water
2 weeks
0.45 μm

0.16​

Not surprisingly, the concentration is reduced in the unfiltered sample, indicating that the rinsing may well have removed some fine particles that were contributing to the results in the unfiltered samples. However, the aluminum concentration in the filtered sample is not reduced, indicating that the “dissolved” fraction of the aluminum is not altered by rinsing the Phosguard first.​

Significance of Aluminum Release from Phosguard
Is the amount of aluminum released from Phosguard significant? Moreover, is it adequate to explain the results on corals that have been reported by aquarists? This question is extremely difficult to answer without some biological experiments. The tests run above show reasonably high concentrations of aluminum. Possibly high enough to cause problems for the organisms shown in Table 1 . But these tests were carried out on a large amount of Phosguard in a small amount of water. Tests with larger volumes of water might well result in lower aluminum concentrations. Additionally, the exact nature of the aluminum in these tests may well be different than in the toxicity tests reported above. That is, the nature may be particulate vs. colloidal vs. soluble vs. complexed by organics, etc.​

 

Thanks for the replies, I was worried that perhaps the mushroom was dying or was infected with something. None of the other corals are showing signs of illness so I was just wondering. I'll try and move it to where my star polyps are now and see if that makes a difference.

I do have a Koralia Nano I can put in but I'm not sure where the best place to put it is. I had the Nano in when I first started the tank and it literally appeared to start a hurricane in the tank. I don't want to stress my other batch of mushrooms or create too much flow for the star polyps as well as any fish I decide to put in once the tank stabilizes.