Can someone tell me if this is disease on my leather?

[ylmaya]

This toadstool that looked really beautiful (for 2 days) is still closed and looking REALLY patchy.

It is in a pretty high flow area. Other corals (even leather) in the tank look great.

See the pictures below and note the pale areas. Is this a disease? Is this leather dying?

HELP! (please)....

[ylmaya]

here is another view

[tdwyatt]

Picture resolution is too bad to really see what that is, but I would suggest looking for flatworms that are the same color as the Sarco. A quick 10 sec freshwater dip will take care of any that are on the coral, although the Sarcophyton will definitely pout after this treatment and prolly shed mucus and dump some terpenes into the water column. This is only a guess, but parasitic flatworms are quite common on Sarcos, although they will occasionally get pouty for no apparent reason as well. Look for small holes near the attachment also, as somie worms will bore into the stalk to consume the octocoral from the inside.

hth

[ylmaya]

From what I can see I don't see any flatworms - but I think the leather is about to slough again because now the spotted areas are looking a little raised. I am going to give it another day and then if no change I'll try the dip idea. Hate to stress it even further if it isn't necessary. I know I had a slight nitrite spike and I don't know if the leather just got "grumpy" because of this and has decided to close. I noticed a little algae growing on its surface as well so I directed a powerhead towards it to give a little more current inits area.

I'm gonna go check again for the flatworms....and wait.