Upset Leathers - Any suggestions

[medic29]

Good morning. I have recently gotten a couple of leather corals that are just not happy. I'm not sure if it is an issue of wheather or not they just have not found a happy place in the tank or if I have them placed wrong, they haven't had enough time, or what so I thought I would post a few pics and see if anyone had any suggestions that could help.

This is a shot of my tank:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/502/135825full_front.jpg

This is a finger leather that I purchased at my local LFS:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/575/135825finger_leather_close.jpg
It still appears upset by the whole ordeal. I have had it for a little over a week now and tried a few different positions in the tank. The night I got it and was putting it in the tank, it came loose from the base rock it was on, so I had to manipulate it some trying to get it to stay where I wanted it, then tying it to the base rock and finally a couple of days later securing it to the base rock with fishing line. So I guess I can see why it would be upset, but I wanted to make sure it wasn't anything else.

Here is a pic of where in the water column the coral is:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/575/135825finger_leather_position.jpg

Here is a pic of another "leather" coral I got from a friend. He stated it just could not find a happy place in his tank, so he thought maybe it would do better in mine, but it is still looking like this:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/575/135825unknown_leather.jpg
I'm not really sure what type of coral this is other than I was told it was a leather, it feels kind of "slimy" like a leather, but other than that....any ideas would be welcome.

Now I do have others that are doing quite well such as my Devils hand:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/575/135825devils_hand.jpg

Here is a pic of a "Spaghetti" Coral that I got a couple of weeks ago. The person at the LFS that I got it from said that I had to be really careful about where I placed it because it was agressive type of coral and would sting others, but in researching this I could not find any information about that. In this pic is it too close to my other corals? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/575/135825spaghetti_coral.jpg

I really like my clam:
http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/564/135825my_clam.jpg

I am fairly new at this stuff and have enjoyed all that I have been able to do so far and truly desire to learn from others. If you have any suggestions and/or comments, please let me know. I would be very interested in hearing them and gaining some insight into this hobby.

Thanks again!!

[AIMFish]

That devils hand doesn't look happy in that pic, they have little polyps that come out. I'd check you kH, when my softies start to look mad sometimes that's the reason.

[Horace]

I would look at all your parameters and make sure they are on the money. If they are ok then they are likely just fine. Leathers are very finicky and only look good about 50% of the time at best. Every couple weeks or so they shed thier outer skin and look like crap for atleast a few days while doing so. My leathers go from looking great to all closed up just in a matter of hours. I wouldnt get to excited.....

[medic29]

It does have it's polyps out...at least it looks like it to me when I look at it in the tank; maybe the pic doesn't do it justice. Here are a few new ones from as close as I could get at this point.

http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/575/135825finger_1.jpg http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/575/135825finger_2.jpg http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/575/135825finger_3.jpg http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/575/135825finger_4.jpg http://reefcentral.com/gallery/data/575/135825finger_5.jpg

I'll test my water today; but it has typically always been very good; once my kH was around 7, but it is usually closer to 9. What should it be to make the leathers happy?

[hounddog01]

I would make it atleast 8. if your tank is smaller then 8-9 would be good. What kind of salt do you use?

[medic29]

I have a 30 gal tank. I had to go look about the salt.....I'm using "Instant Ocean" right now. After I'm through with that bucket of salt I was thinking about switching to "Reef Crystals".

[redvipe2010]

Are they getting enough flow?

[medic29]

Well, I think so. I have moved them around in the tank to try to make sure they are in the path of the water flow. I have 3 power head currently running in the tank. A Maxi-flow 1200 in the front left pointed towards the back center with a rotating flow head on it; then a penguin 1140 in the Right front pointed towards the back center with a rotating flow head on it and a Maxi-flow 600 in the back Right pointed towards the front center. The maxi-flow 1200 is rated at 295gal/hr, the 600 is rated at something like 150gal/hr and the penguin 1140 is rated at 300gal/hr. All of the leathers kind of wave back in forth when the water flow hits them. The Devil's hand I think is doing pretty good; it gets big during the day when the light is on and it's color is light brown; when it gets mad it turns a purple in color and really shrinks up; sometimes it does this at night too when the lights are off. I don't know if I need to move the finger leather and the other up or down in the water column and/or have them in constant water flow, etc., thus the reason why I'm posting here and putting up the pics so that you can see where everything is at and what they look like.

Everything else is doing pretty good. My GSP are flurishing; my athenia is growning like wild fire and spreading. My clam seems to be doing pretty good. I just added a Nepthelia the other night and it looks pretty good as well, but I would like to move it because right now it is sitting towards the back of the tank and I would like to move it forward so that it can get seen more.

Let me know what you think!!

[redvipe2010]

In my experience, the 4 leathers I have seem to do that when they are not getting enough flow to keep the slime off of them. I've been able to position each in a place that they are happy 95% of the time.