Toadstool Mushroom Leather Coral in trouble

[specter]

I have a brown Toadstool Mushroom Leather Coral that seams to be stressing. I came home Friday after work and it was all drawn in and hasn't come back out, it was fine for a week and a half but not now, it doesn't have any wax type coating or discoloration it just won't come out.

Any thoughts?

[aquawolf]

It may just be going through a molt which is what they do from time to time. You usually will not see the "waxy" coating until it is just about ready to begin shedding it. You should have a little flow on it to help blow the sloughing skin off and p[ossibly run some carbon to cut down the chemicals it may release into the water.

Here is a picture of mine as it is coming out of molt which might help you identify it a little, you can actually see the skin sloughing off it:

[specter]

Heres a pic of it. I'm running a carbon bag in my filter system.

[aquawolf]

It doesn't appear to be limp at all or deteriorating, so I would just leave it alone for now. As long as it doesn't start melting away everything should be fine with it. When it is done molting it will spring back fuller and brighter than before.

[specter]

Cool! Thanks again for all your help.

[crvz]

Good luck with it. Hope it pulls through and comes back better than ever.

[exodave]

Originally Posted by aquawolf

It doesn't appear to be limp at all or deteriorating, so I would just leave it alone for now. As long as it doesn't start melting away everything should be fine with it. When it is done molting it will spring back fuller and brighter than before.

I'll second that. I used to have one of those, and it would fairly regularly go into a state just like that, and then grow back larger than before.

[pepper815]

its weird but my cleaning crew seem to get on top of it and eat and rip off the old layer....is this ok?

[aquawolf]

That is odd behavior. I wonder what they are getting out of eating it, like some fish get a little high when eating zoanthids. As long as the leather keeps coming back and putting out its tentacles after the molt everything should be fine. You could try increasing the flow around the leather to see if that helps blow the shed tissue off faster.