Need help with sick toadstool please!!!

[ylmaya]

History (bear with me hear please)

A couple of days ago I posted about a sad leather and was told to change its location in the tank. This worked great. The leather sloughed its coat and opened beautifully. It never got really long polyps like the toadstool but it looked great! I also got a toadstool leather which is shown below. This leather opened after 1 day in the tank and was beautiful. Standing upright with nice long fuzzy yellow tipped polyps.

My fish have developed a nasty case of ick so I began to feed heavily with garlic laced food. I lost the blue tang to ick.

Suddenly the leathers both closed and now the toadstool has these white patches (see picture).

I took water to the lfs and pH etc. were all clear. Slight nitrite elevation which I am attributing to overfeeding. I have cut back on food and added some "cycle" to the tank.

All fish and other corals look great. BUT Leathers still don't look good at all. WHAT CAN I DO TO SAVE THIS TOADSTOOL?

[JennM]

Hmmm unhappy corals AND ich? What's your temperature saying? Is it fluctuating from morning to evening? First thing I would look to do is figure out what inspired the ich outbreak and it *might* lead to whatever is ailing your corals.

Look for nudibranchs on the corals - I've found the odd leather to have a nudi on it that looked JUST like the coral itself, but the nudi was munching on it. Once I removed the nudis (found as many as 3 on one specimen) the coral healed up. I also find a Tech D dip is helpful too, to help cleanse anything off that might cause a secondary infection/infestation. Dip is for the corals only (not the fish...).

I'm betting that there is a common reason for both coral distress and fish distress. Find that, fix it, and you've got the answer to your problem.

I'd also check pH before photoperiod starts, middle of photoperiod and at the end of the photoperiod (check pH and temp at the same time.... see if either or both are fluctuating).

Nitrite in any amount is toxic... the problem with additives like "cycle" is that they will kick start your system with all this extra bacteria, but if the biological load doesn't stay elevated, the very bacteria you added, will die off and potentially cause another spike. Do some water changes and let Mother Nature find her balance again. Tinkering by adding more bacteria will actually slow her down, IMO.

Jenn

[ylmaya]

No Nudi's to be seen Jenn and I think my temp is pretty stable but I'll check. What concerns me is why jut the leather? I have star polyps, torch, frogspawn and even an LTA that are behaving beautifully. How many degrees fluctuation do you think is a problem?

Also - How do I dipin Tech D? I will get some today.....and do another 10G water change.

Do you know what the white spots are? Will they recover?