Leather coral open, closed, open, closed

Hi all,

I bought a leather coral on the 6th December and it keeps opening and
closing a lot. Sometimes it is open for days and then closed for days
and at other times it is open during the day and closed at night. It has
shed a mucous type stuff a few times which sort of looks like when you
peel from sunburn. The corals that came on the live rock are all fine,
in fact they are spreading/growing well. Is this normal behaviour for a
leather coral?

I increased the water movement around it after it's 2nd week here which
made no difference and increased the metal hallide lighting by an hour a
day. It looks great when it opens.

My Calcium level is still at 600 and my tank is only a few months old.
All other tests are normal, Ammonia, Nitrites and nitrates 0, Phosphates
0, SG 1.023 and pH is 8.4. Temps here in Oz have been hotter than normal
but until a couple of days ago the tank never got over 29°c and then it
just touched on 30 for one day. The first few weeks I had it the temps
were around 26/27C. I really don't want to spend $1000 on a chiller.

I only have a young pair of ocellaris clowns, a pair of pyjama cardinals
and a coral beauty in a 700 litre tank along with a coral banded shrimp
and an unidentified crab.

Is there something I should be doing or is this normal behaviour (or
normal behaviour for a newly moved coral)?

Thanks for any advice.
miskairal

Hi - not sure why only the one coral is doing that but I have had a few of
my corals die of in patches and stay closed because the water was too hot.
I find corals like 25 degrees C - anything over 27 and they start to close
and discolour. I found that taking away the cover glass over a few of my
corals also helped - they got more direct light.

I would just try and move it around until it finds a place it likes.
Otherwise save up and buy a chiller - they really are worth it if you want
to keep good coral.

~m


"miskairal" mehiding@Oz wrote in message
u...
Hi all,

I bought a leather coral on the 6th December and it keeps opening and
closing a lot. Sometimes it is open for days and then closed for days and
at other times it is open during the day and closed at night. It has shed
a mucous type stuff a few times which sort of looks like when you peel
from sunburn. The corals that came on the live rock are all fine, in fact
they are spreading/growing well. Is this normal behaviour for a leather
coral?

I increased the water movement around it after it's 2nd week here which
made no difference and increased the metal hallide lighting by an hour a
day. It looks great when it opens.

My Calcium level is still at 600 and my tank is only a few months old. All
other tests are normal, Ammonia, Nitrites and nitrates 0, Phosphates 0, SG
1.023 and pH is 8.4. Temps here in Oz have been hotter than normal but
until a couple of days ago the tank never got over 29°c and then it just
touched on 30 for one day. The first few weeks I had it the temps were
around 26/27C. I really don't want to spend $1000 on a chiller.

I only have a young pair of ocellaris clowns, a pair of pyjama cardinals
and a coral beauty in a 700 litre tank along with a coral banded shrimp
and an unidentified crab.

Is there something I should be doing or is this normal behaviour (or
normal behaviour for a newly moved coral)?

Thanks for any advice.
miskairal

Thanks Michael,
I dont' have any covers on my tank at all and have fans set up to blow
out the heat from the hallides. Why are chillers so darn expensive? I
could buy a new fridge for that much easily (mine is 25 years old).

I've found some chillers on ebay for $750 new but am very wary about
buying that way especially something worth as much as that. I've bought
stuff for my freshwater tanks there but I knew more about what i was
buying and the values were all under $25.

2 grand was supposed to get me setup with this tank but so far I've
already spent more than $3000 (Australian).

The first 6 days I had the coral it was opened up fine and the temp was
around 25/26°C. On day 7 it closed up for about 6 days and the temp was
the same. I think it's open more than it isn't but is it normal for it
to shut at night? I can see no discolouration so far or marks or spots.

Thanks for your help.


Michael Lawford wrote:
Hi - not sure why only the one coral is doing that but I have had a few of
my corals die of in patches and stay closed because the water was too hot.
I find corals like 25 degrees C - anything over 27 and they start to close
and discolour. I found that taking away the cover glass over a few of my
corals also helped - they got more direct light.

I would just try and move it around until it finds a place it likes.
Otherwise save up and buy a chiller - they really are worth it if you want
to keep good coral.

~m


"miskairal" mehiding@Oz wrote in message
u...

Hi all,

I bought a leather coral on the 6th December and it keeps opening and
closing a lot. Sometimes it is open for days and then closed for days and
at other times it is open during the day and closed at night. It has shed
a mucous type stuff a few times which sort of looks like when you peel
from sunburn. The corals that came on the live rock are all fine, in fact
they are spreading/growing well. Is this normal behaviour for a leather
coral?

I increased the water movement around it after it's 2nd week here which
made no difference and increased the metal hallide lighting by an hour a
day. It looks great when it opens.

My Calcium level is still at 600 and my tank is only a few months old. All
other tests are normal, Ammonia, Nitrites and nitrates 0, Phosphates 0, SG
1.023 and pH is 8.4. Temps here in Oz have been hotter than normal but
until a couple of days ago the tank never got over 29°c and then it just
touched on 30 for one day. The first few weeks I had it the temps were
around 26/27C. I really don't want to spend $1000 on a chiller.

I only have a young pair of ocellaris clowns, a pair of pyjama cardinals
and a coral beauty in a 700 litre tank along with a coral banded shrimp
and an unidentified crab.

Is there something I should be doing or is this normal behaviour (or
normal behaviour for a newly moved coral)?

Thanks for any advice.
miskairal

You calcium level is way too high !
Should be around 450.


"miskairal" mehiding@Oz wrote in message
u...
Hi all,

I bought a leather coral on the 6th December and it keeps opening and
closing a lot. Sometimes it is open for days and then closed for days and
at other times it is open during the day and closed at night. It has shed
a mucous type stuff a few times which sort of looks like when you peel
from sunburn. The corals that came on the live rock are all fine, in fact
they are spreading/growing well. Is this normal behaviour for a leather
coral?

I increased the water movement around it after it's 2nd week here which
made no difference and increased the metal hallide lighting by an hour a
day. It looks great when it opens.

My Calcium level is still at 600 and my tank is only a few months old. All
other tests are normal, Ammonia, Nitrites and nitrates 0, Phosphates 0, SG
1.023 and pH is 8.4. Temps here in Oz have been hotter than normal but
until a couple of days ago the tank never got over 29°c and then it just
touched on 30 for one day. The first few weeks I had it the temps were
around 26/27C. I really don't want to spend $1000 on a chiller.

I only have a young pair of ocellaris clowns, a pair of pyjama cardinals
and a coral beauty in a 700 litre tank along with a coral banded shrimp
and an unidentified crab.

Is there something I should be doing or is this normal behaviour (or
normal behaviour for a newly moved coral)?

Thanks for any advice.
miskairal

miskairal wrote "Why are chillers so darn expensive? I could buy a new
fridge for that much easily (mine is 25 years old)."

Because it's MARINE, the minute you mention that dreaded word the price
of anything and everything is increased x5, usually for no particular
reason. "I'd like a can of coke please", "Sure that will be 50p, thank
you", "I plan to drink it while watching my marine aquarium", "Oh,
sorry, then you need this special marine coke, which is the same as
normal coke but costs £10"

On a more serious note, my leather coral was great and then went very
floppy, I had been a bit lax in my water changes and so added a trace
element mix which fixed the problem, almost overnight. Just a thought.

David

My leathers (a few of them anyhow) often do what yours does., Its not
uncommon for leathers to shed a slime or mucous layer and some of mine
even get a funky black color like they are dead or dying, but they
seem to do just fine without any intervention. I found that they like
some current to kepp them cleaned off, but not a lot of flow. As to
lights, well, I have em up high and down low and all have been fine,
but I do not use MH. I really do nnot think they require as intense of
lighting as MH provides, but should in time acclimate to new lights. 2
weeks is not all that long of a time frame for some corals.......You
calcium is kind of high, but its not a problem that it is deadly to
anything, so I owuld work at getting it back down to 450 to 500 max
with ALK around 11 or so. Looks like evcerything else if fine with
water parameters.
--
\\\|///
( @ @ )
-----------oOOo(_)oOOo---------------


oooO
---------( )----Oooo----------------
\ ( ( )
\_) ) /
(_/
The original frugal ponder! Koi-ahoi mates....

"miskairal" mehiding@Oz wrote in message
u...
Thanks Michael,
I dont' have any covers on my tank at all and have fans set up to blow out
the heat from the hallides. Why are chillers so darn expensive? I could
buy a new fridge for that much easily (mine is 25 years old).

your fridge doesn't have titanium tubing in it.

I've found some chillers on ebay for $750 new but am very wary about
buying that way especially something worth as much as that. I've bought
stuff for my freshwater tanks there but I knew more about what i was
buying and the values were all under $25.

DrC wrote:
miskairal wrote "Why are chillers so darn expensive? I could buy a new
fridge for that much easily (mine is 25 years old)."

Because it's MARINE, the minute you mention that dreaded word the price
of anything and everything is increased x5, usually for no particular
reason. "I'd like a can of coke please", "Sure that will be 50p, thank
you", "I plan to drink it while watching my marine aquarium", "Oh,
sorry, then you need this special marine coke, which is the same as
normal coke but costs £10"

Haha!

On a more serious note, my leather coral was great and then went very
floppy, I had been a bit lax in my water changes and so added a trace
element mix which fixed the problem, almost overnight. Just a thought.

The two products I bought with the coral both have Ca in them and that's
the last thing my tank needs right now. I have not added any yet.

David

I know but how do I get it down? I asked here about it a while back and
the consensus seemed to be that it wouldn't hurt anything.

TheRock wrote:
You calcium level is way too high !
Should be around 450.


"miskairal" mehiding@Oz wrote in message
u...

Hi all,

I bought a leather coral on the 6th December and it keeps opening and
closing a lot. Sometimes it is open for days and then closed for days and
at other times it is open during the day and closed at night. It has shed
a mucous type stuff a few times which sort of looks like when you peel
from sunburn. The corals that came on the live rock are all fine, in fact
they are spreading/growing well. Is this normal behaviour for a leather
coral?

I increased the water movement around it after it's 2nd week here which
made no difference and increased the metal hallide lighting by an hour a
day. It looks great when it opens.

My Calcium level is still at 600 and my tank is only a few months old. All
other tests are normal, Ammonia, Nitrites and nitrates 0, Phosphates 0, SG
1.023 and pH is 8.4. Temps here in Oz have been hotter than normal but
until a couple of days ago the tank never got over 29°c and then it just
touched on 30 for one day. The first few weeks I had it the temps were
around 26/27C. I really don't want to spend $1000 on a chiller.

I only have a young pair of ocellaris clowns, a pair of pyjama cardinals
and a coral beauty in a 700 litre tank along with a coral banded shrimp
and an unidentified crab.

Is there something I should be doing or is this normal behaviour (or
normal behaviour for a newly moved coral)?

Thanks for any advice.
miskairal

I might try shifting the coral to a less light area. I read somewhere
that they need a flow of water sufficient to remove the mucous within 24
hours and where it is now is about what it gets.

2 weeks? No I've had it about 5 weeks. When I bought it the shop owner
told me to give it a month to settle in. I might try ringing him back as
he has been extremely helpful and I have setup my tank similar to his
which looks fabulous and is never overstocked with fish.

Roy wrote:
My leathers (a few of them anyhow) often do what yours does., Its not
uncommon for leathers to shed a slime or mucous layer and some of mine
even get a funky black color like they are dead or dying, but they
seem to do just fine without any intervention. I found that they like
some current to kepp them cleaned off, but not a lot of flow. As to
lights, well, I have em up high and down low and all have been fine,
but I do not use MH. I really do nnot think they require as intense of
lighting as MH provides, but should in time acclimate to new lights. 2
weeks is not all that long of a time frame for some corals.......You
calcium is kind of high, but its not a problem that it is deadly to
anything, so I owuld work at getting it back down to 450 to 500 max
with ALK around 11 or so. Looks like evcerything else if fine with
water parameters.