Help please with green devil's hand

Reefmack · #1 07/16/2007, 04:09 PM

Hi. First my toadstool "took a nap" for 3 days and is now looking awesome again. Shortly after the toadstool came back in full glory, I noticed my devil's hand hasn't been extending it's polyps for 2 days now and has taken on a green cast, although I see no visible algae on it's surface. Anyone ever seen this? It doesn't look top notch anymore, but I don't see any signs of tissue degeneration - it's just a bit droopy & greenish. The toadstool & devil's hand aren't close (~15 inches away from each other), and the devil's hand isn't very close to any other softies or lps.

Before (2 days ago):

Today:

In addition, and I don't know if it has any bearing on this, but I've been seeing a few long strands (about 3 inches long) of something attached to the devil's hand - long thin strands with a comb like appearance on one side of these strands. I keep pulling them off but they seem to reappear. Hard to get a picture - this is the best I can do. One of the strands starts near the lower left, and is floating up diagonally towards the upper right in the picture. The clearest part of the stand and comb-like appearance is at the lower left, above the coral:

I'm thinking maybe hydroid, but I'm just guessing. I'm doubtful that it's causing the coral to turn green, but I don't know if the two are even related?

Thanks for any help or advice.

cloak · #2 07/16/2007, 05:23 PM

Has it ever taken on this green hue when it shed it's skin before? Looks normal to me. Just give it a few days and it shold look like the first pic. Don't know what those stringy things are.

Reefmack · #3 07/16/2007, 05:54 PM

Hi. I've only had the devil's hand a bit over a week, so I haven't had it long enough to know whether or not any of this is typical. It looked great for a week, then stopped putting out the polyps and started getting the greenish cast - almost like it's expelling algae or something. I guess I'll just let it go and maybe it will just come back to it's full glory after a day or a few more days. My toadstool went through something similar, but never turned green. Maybe it's just another thing leather type corals do. The green shade had me the most concerned (and that hydroid or whatever it is).

cloak · #4 07/16/2007, 06:07 PM

I wouldn't worry about it . As long as your perameters are in check it will come back. It will goes through these phases as it grows.

Reefmack · #5 07/16/2007, 06:13 PM

Thanks for the reassurances. It seems like the leather types do a lot of strange things. I'll wait & see.

gh0st · #6 07/18/2007, 07:03 PM

The stringy things are Sweeper Tentacles, rarely seen used by Soft Corals, but every now and then they'll employ them, ussually when looking for food.

More flow might help the shedding process if it is in a lower water flow area.

Reefmack · #7 07/18/2007, 08:22 PM

Hi & thanks for the info. on the sweeper tentacles. It's in a high flow area already. It started "waking up" yesterday evening, shedding a thin transparent skin, and today it again looks like my "before" picture above. The green color really had me wondering - unlike a typical algae, the whole surface was a fluorescent green under my moonlights - similar to the tips of my frogspawn/euphyllia sp. under moonlight. But all is back to normal now. The devil's hand and a toadstool are my first two leather types, and they certainly do some things I'm not used to seeing with other corals.

NanoReefWanabe · #8 07/19/2007, 09:39 PM

mine turns a purplish green when it is getting ready to sluff..

what scares me is i have never seen the polyps extend on mine and i have had it for four months...it has grown like a weed though...but never seen the polyps...

Reefmack · #9 07/20/2007, 06:35 AM

Strange you've never seem the polyps NanoReefWanabe, but there are a lot of different species of these leather types - maybe they don't all put out polyps? If it's growing it must be doing OK.

Anyone know why these leathers are so finicky and go through these stages? My devil's hand just went back to the "green phase" again after a brief return to normal. I've had to move some things around in the tank, but not the DH. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with it or not. I also wonder if manually topping off the tank with RO/DI water has anything to do with it - I add the FW very slowly, but maybe it's the brief change in salinity drifting over the leather till the tank reaches equilibrium again. Leathers are weird.