Do Snails Eat Leather?????

[ylmaya]

Do snails eat leather. I purchased what I thought were turbo grazers for my cleanup crew...I posted earlier that both my toadstool and "other" leather were looking miserable. The toadstool was open and beautiful one day and now shut down for 3. Just now after the lights went down to actinic only - I noticed 2 snails cruising the toadstool and one on the other peice of leather. I had to "pry" the snails off.

Is it possible that they were "just passing by" getting from rock to rock or are they the cause of the white patchiness on my toadstool? (see picture below).

Argh! I'll check in a few hours after total darkness to see if snails have returned....

In the mean time....any suggestions? (Perhaps these guys will serve better in my sump!!!!!)

[Geoff]

i am not an expert on softies, so this is all i have learned. hopefully others will chime in if i am wrong. sorry for the disclaimer, but i have been known to be wrong before.

i do not think it is your snails. what i think is your leather is not getting enought current, so it is starting to grow algae on its surgace. the snails are just trying to find a meal. the leather should schloff(sp.) off this coating though if the current was a little stronger.

my .02,

G~

[Reefer Addict]

Good attempt at the spelling there Geoff.
Schloff reminds me of some type of Russian Vodka.

It's actually spelled like 'tough'.

"slough".

That was a good try though... that's a tough word to visualize.

[MontanaRocknReefer]

I have two finger leather corals and have had to move them around to find the spot they really like! They will shut down from time to time to shed a coat of muscus to rid themselves of algae. I find if they are in a good current they don't shed as much! Here is a pick of one of my finger leather corals!

[Doug1]

Leather corals sloughing of slime coat is not unusual, its pretty normal. It helps to have slow steady currnts over them to aid in the proccess. In the wild they would normally get multi directional currents and eddies depending on tidal cycles, prevailing sea currents and the like.
If all else fails you can user the baster to make sure any shedding mucous coats they have are able to free up.
Other than that, have you fined tuned the cooling and other issues you were going round with, how is the tank doing overall?

[Geoff]

Originally posted by Reefer Addict
Good attempt at the spelling there Geoff.
Schloff reminds me of some type of Russian Vodka.

It's actually spelled like 'tough'.

"slough".

That was a good try though... that's a tough word to visualize.

as if you could not tell, i was never a threat at a spelling bee!

G~

[ylmaya]

Well Doug - of course I fell pray to impatience and probably overstocked fish which came down with Ick and I am losing one by one.

Overall the tank (equipment) seems to be running fine. I am losing about 2 gallons a day still to evaporation - but somebody local is going to come out and check my "kent bio-rocker" system to make sure I am set up ok.

I am getting temerature shift from 79 to 81 throughout the lighting cycle. Is 3 degrees too much? I can put the fans on timers with the lights so they don't cool down the tank at night if you think 3 degrees is too much. Could that be the cause of the ick problem? Here's another issue - I tried to dose garlic via food to help with the ick but I think I overfed causing a slight nitrite spike. I added some cycle to help with this.....and of course cut back with feeding. I think I'll just have to let the ick run its course. (Since the tank is only 8 weeks old the spike also could have been another cycle????)

All corals (except the large toadstool leather) are looking great. I have a really nice neon green open brain that is really amazing, along with green star polyps, torch and frogspawn that are all open nicely. My LTA is even happy so I can't imagine that the water is really a problem here......Although there is bad ick - all the fish/shrimp are eating like crazy.

Any suggestions?