Karl the Angry Toadstool Leather

[absurdbert]

I’ve been a lurker on this forum for a few years now, but finally decided to make an account.

Recently my area had a major storm, and my system was without reliable power for 5 Days. Everything in my system (fish, sps coral, and even my non-photosynthetic gorgonian) seemed to have faired really well. Some things seem to have taken off even with the additional water changes and unintended tank blackout. While it sucked to go through, my triage plan worked really well. (Though I have ideas to make it simpler and more efficient in the future)

The one thing in my tank that has been struggling is my Toad Stool Leather. Karl (as it was so lovingly referred to in our household) used to have amazing polyp extension and was looking really healthy. But now his edges look tattered like something has been munching on him or like he is generally unwell.

Advice or insight would be greatly appreciated. Open to any thoughts or additional questions as this hobby is very dynamic and can sometimes have many possible causes.

 

[Formulator]

Welcome to R2R! Glad you made it through the outage with relatively small impact! Leathers are some of the most resilient corals in the hobby, and are also some of the most finicky with their appearance. They certainly let us know when they are angry! I don’t think yours looks too bad. I would give it some time to recover and I bet it will be back to itself in a few days to a week. It it looks like it was being eaten, you might have a nocturnal predator that took advantage of the prolonged darkness to find a new favorite meal, but I can’t think of any.

 

[absurdbert]

I kind of figured patience would be key with this one. Given leather’s tendency to be virtually indestructible it was surprising to see it not fair as well as some of my more finicky corals. That ultimately lead to me reaching out for any advice.

@Formulator thanks for the kind welcome. Sometimes it seems like forums get a little crazy so the thoughtful response was really appreciated!

Welcome to R2R! Glad you made it through the outage with relatively small impact! Leathers are some of the most resilient corals in the hobby, and are also some of the most finicky with their appearance. They certainly let us know when they are angry! I don’t think yours looks too bad. I would give it some time to recover and I bet it will be back to itself in a few days to a week. It it looks like it was being eaten, you might have a nocturnal predator that took advantage of the prolonged darkness to find a new favorite meal, but I can’t think of any.

 

[JoJosReef]

He does look like he has some rough edges, but otherwise healthy. Do you have any other leathers in the tank? They can get into terpene warfare when bothered. Has it shed recently? Could be prepping to shed. Like @Formulator said, would just give it some time and see how it fares.

Note: if it looks like it is starting to disolve into tatters, you might want to frag off the most solid pieces you can find, move them somewhere else and run a bunch of carbon.

 

[absurdbert]

Well it has been about a week and we look angrier than ever, should I consider fragging it down? I do have fresh carbon to run.