Picture of my new leather

[cutietwo]

I purchased a leather coral (at least I think it's a leather) about a week ago and I just wanted to share my joy Also a few threads back I posted that I had bought a ricordea and that it had been swept away by the current and I thought I lost it ($30 cha-ching!). last night I was looking at my tank under the moon lights and I found it! of course, it's not where I want it at all. it attached itself on a rock at the back of the tank. I want to move it so I can put it in the front of the tank, how do I go about doing that? I tried to get a picture of it back there but it isn't the bes so my apologies it's through the hole to the right of the huge red mushroom.

[whatevva]

Congrtas on the leather! Looks like a finger leather to me. As far as the shroom? You'll have to move the rock that he's on. They move when they're not happy, and only attach when they like their suroundings.

[ibanez2k]

Nice leather! If the ric is good and attached to the rock you can take a razorblade and seperate it. Pointing a powerhead at it for a while will make it mad and it will detatch itself as well. Once you get it loose the method I like to use is to take a shallow dish/lid/cup, layer in a few pieces of loose rubble, place the coral in on top of the rubble, and then cover the dish with a piece of bridal veil or similar material held on by wrapping a thin rubber band around it so the coral stays in the dish. A week or so and it will attach itself to one of the rubble pieces. Then you can relocate it easily to another location where you want it. This method is pretty easy to do and you can find a few instructional videos around the internet for it as well to help you out.

[cutietwo]

ok thanks! I was thinking it was a finger leather

[cutietwo]

it has these weird small green polyps that cover it . is that normal for a leather? I didn't really notice anything like that on others. (not that i'm complaining )

[ibanez2k]

Yep. It's normal. My finger leathers got green polyps as well. Very pretty coral when it's polyps are fully extended. I love it.

[Frank-n-Tank]

seems my leather does best when pruned, i am running out of space, 1 turned into 4 and about to be 5, loves iodine

[Jnicho]

Looks like a Yellow Fiji Spaghetti Leather to me...I got one that was just slightly larger than that...and in a little less than 2 years it's grown into the colony you see in the top right of this pic (above the GSP and the 4 stripe damsel):



Leathers can take a while to "get happy" when first introduced to a tank...once it does it should polyp out like this:


As stated above, many soft corals do benefit from some Iodine...just be careful with it...it's toxic in too high a concentration...if you have a good skimmer it will remove most of the iodine in less than 24 hours...for that reason I choose to dose a very small amount daily...and when I say a very small amount I'm talking like 4-6 drops in 200 gallons of water...I do notice colors improve and polyp extension is better though.

[cutietwo]

Originally Posted by Jnicho

Looks like a Yellow Fiji Spaghetti Leather to me...I got one that was just slightly larger than that...and in a little less than 2 years it's grown into the colony you see in the top right of this pic (above the GSP and the 4 stripe damsel):



Leathers can take a while to "get happy" when first introduced to a tank...once it does it should polyp out like this:


As stated above, many soft corals do benefit from some Iodine...just be careful with it...it's toxic in too high a concentration...if you have a good skimmer it will remove most of the iodine in less than 24 hours...for that reason I choose to dose a very small amount daily...and when I say a very small amount I'm talking like 4-6 drops in 200 gallons of water...I do notice colors improve and polyp extension is better though.

oh my gosh your tank is absolutely gorgeous! That's a TON of xenia. Thanks for the comment, I hope my new leather gets that big that'd be awesome so far it's doing great. I've started dosing iodine for it ..so far have only dosed once. I am going to dose a little under half every two weeks after my water change, and since I leave the skimmer off almost all day after a wc then my corals should suck it up I hope.

[adamthe55galreefer]

how long does it take for a peice of leather frag to grow to a normal size

[Salty O'Shen]

i have a 1/2" frag that i started 6 weeks ago and it's about 1.25" already...not sure what you mean by normal size though...HTH

[Jnicho]

Hard to say...the yellow Fiji I was talking about has gone for around 4" tall by 2" wide to probably 8" tall by 14" wide in about 18 mos....on the other hand I have a Devils Hand that was about 1.5" when I got it 2 years ago and it's still less than 3".

[adamthe55galreefer]

ok from what i have gatherd they grow quick

[Loverotties]

Yes compaired to other corals.

[whatevva]

There's nothing prettier than a happy leather!!!