Leather Toadstool Help

[AquaBert]

Hi all,

I purchased a leather toadstool at my LFS 3 months ago.

for the first month, it looked great. Then came the period where it shed. Afterwards, the polyps never extended fully again. Some days it’s totally retracted. Not sure what to do.
Parameters:

Alk: 9.4
Magnesium: 1360
Calcium: 442
pH: 8.3-8.6

ammonia: 0
Nitrites: 0
Nitrates: varies 2-4 ppm
Phosphate is usually 0.04

salinity always at 1.24
Par for this one sits in the 100-125 range

any ideas? It really hasn’t grown much. Just wondering if I should move it up to higher par?

tank buds: 2 blue legged hermits, a lawnmower, starfish, couple of snails and 2 nassarius snails.

Below you will see before and after. Also when I measures the PAR .

light phases:

7am: morning light

9am: ramps up to full spectrum but I have the LEDs at 60% max power. My sps bleached when I had it at 75% power. Light sits 2 inches above water (evo 5 gallon setup)

5pm: moon phase begin

8pm: all lights off

 

[Stephen8169301]

There is no after photo

 

[AquaBert]

The only thing that I can think of is that I moved it from 175 Par to 100 Par…not sure if that would affect it

 

[AquaBert]

After

 

[Stephen8169301]

@AquaBert what is your flow like?

 

[Sharkbait19]

How is the flow by it? The sand could also be irritating it. Most corals do better on the rocks (though I do have one leather that only likes one particular spot on the sandbed).
It’s pretty normal for leathers to be temperamental . Some of mine went months before finally opening up.

 

[AquaBert]

Flow before was moderate

currently low to mod

@AquaBert what is your flow like?

 

[AquaBert]

Sorry the photos are taking forever to load

 

[AquaBert]

How is the flow by it? The sand could also be irritating it. Most corals do better on the rocks (though I do have one leather that only likes one particular spot on the sandbed).
It’s pretty normal for leathers to be temperamental . Some of mine went months before finally opening up.

Currently low to mod but varied current

 

[Sharkbait19]

They like decently strong flow (not too high), it helps keep detritus off them as well. I would try moving it somewhere with higher flow and see how it does after 1-2 weeks.

 

[Stephen8169301]

They like decently strong flow (not too high), it helps keep detritus off them as well. I would try moving it somewhere with higher flow and see how it does after 1-2 weeks.

^^^^

 

[AquaBert]

^^^^

I’ll try that, thank you!