Baby leather - Dying or Stressed?

See pic. Is my baby leather dying or simply stressed out? A few weeks ago I took pictures and brought them to the store. The lady said it was just stressed. He finally opened up and seemed fine. Four or Five days ago I was sucking up some algae off of him and he closed. He has opened since and now has spots.

Yikes!!!

 

Toadstools need flow on them, not to be blasted, but a nice gentle wave. is yours getting any flow?

and what are your parameters?

 

Leathers can be funny, sometimes mine closes up for a few days for no apparent reason. You could try moving it to a place with moderate flow if it is in a low flow area now as cuttingras said. Four or five days is kinda of on the border line between fine and cautionary. I would keep an eye on it and see if there is any improvement. If there isn't, im not sure there is much you can do.

 

He is still not out yet. He still looks the same, no additional spots of anything. Is he dying or just stressed. I moved him closer to the light and in better flow.

 

He's probably stressed but there's a fine line between not adjusting to the new environment and slowly dying. You may want to post your parameters (temp, specific gravity, calcium, magnesium and carbonate hardness at a minimum. Then we can help you.

 

I bought a few leathers like that too, one was damaged severely. I put it a rock crevice (it was torn from frag) and it eventually started doing great, for quite some time I thought it would die though. On the frag it was torn from were three others, one was doing very bad and would not even stand up. With both the polyps rarely came out at first. I started helping it stand up little by little each day by putting rocks under it and now it's doing great also. Do what the others said, post your parameters and give it good flow and light.

 

Hi, it looks fine but has some algae on it and will shed to get rid of it. Are your lights old? Or, I should ask what type lights and how old? After I added new lights (stronger) my large toad stool "pouted" for awhile until it got used to them. So, either side of the spectrum can affect them. Look in this pic and see the large is fine but the "baby" it had is "shut down" which they do from time to time for feeding or shedding or whatever. The baby is center left.

 

Since he may still be alive and can still be saved, here is my lengthy story. I have had the 10 gallon tank running just fine for about 2 years. I was up to five different corals (mushroom, long green flower pot, green polyp, short white flower pot and finally the baby toad stool leather. A couple of months ago I started having serious problems and have no idea what started the vicious cycle.

Here are my suspicions. I feared I was overfeeding in my tank because there was red algae/bacteria growing steadily in the sand. So I slowed the food to every 2-3 days. I only have 2 fish (yellow gobie and clown... both in excellent health). From what I gather by others posts I did, the sand sifter starfish starved to death. I understand that many sea creatures spew toxins when they dye... so... at the time I wasn't very good keeping up carbon changes.

 

Don't panic! As long as it isn't deformed and "mushy" it is fine. It is standing and has thickness. You can aid it by taking a new soft tooth brush and gently brushing off the crud on top of it. I have done that for my large one and it shed more quickly. Leather Corals are tough. You have not said what type and how old your lights are? Let us know.

 

+ on the flow if it can not have the mucas removed naturaly from flow in the tank hes not in enough flow
I guess its equal to lying in your own waste lol not to nice