Leather shrunk!

[akopley]

I just got a new leather two days ago and all of a sudden he shrank up in the middle of the day? I was used to seeing this at night but what gives?

[Illuminati]

Odds are he is getting ****y due to water conditions. What are your parameters? High nitrates?

[Shiandy]

Mine did the same, stayed that way for about 10 days, then came back and looked better than ever.

I would not worry too much, just give it time.

[sir_dudeguy]

Stress from the move is my bet. It'll prolly open up more w/in a week or so, but to make sure, run all tests
amonia
nitrite
nitrate
pH
temp
sg

I know theres something i missed, but test those. What are they at? If those are fine, is it next to another coral that might sting? (such as torch) or are any fish/inverts picking at it?

If everything is good, then i'd say just stress from the move.

Oh, and whats your lighting?

[akopley]

Lighting is orbit extreme 520 watt. Parameters are in check. I hope it is just stress from the move.

[sir_dudeguy]

to be safe...what are the actual parameters? you may have some obvious silly thing...like temp being 87 or something lol.

[akopley]

I just tested...

PH 8.2

Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
Ammonia 0
Calcium 420

[fsn77]

I vote for stress from the move, as long as there's no other corals touching or really close to it. When we got ours, it was almost a week before it opened up as fully as it was in the lfs.

[nmprisons]

they also "shed" every once in a while and it may be doing that. look closely, particularly at night, and see if there is a shiny film on it. if so, use a turkey baster to blast it or just make sure it is getting decent flow. it should open up a bit bigger than before in a day or two.

[sir_dudeguy]

leathers shed? Mine's done that but i was kinda freeked out, but then it went away and it looks better now lol. how often does it do this?

[BurntOutReefer]

The leather will be fine. It'll "shed/slogh" alot and come back bigger. Give it a week or so......thay are pretty strong

[sir_dudeguy]

So when it sheds (or slogh's like you say), Thats how they grow? Like they become too big for the skin they're in at the moment, so they grow another one underneith and shed the top layer? Sounds like shrimp/crabs :) Is that the only way it can grow? (by shedding i mean)

How often does it do this too? Thats pretty interesting i think. Never knew they'd do that. (oh and how fast do they grow? i got a toadstool leather about 3 or 4 weeks ago, and as far as i can tell, its done that once..but its only like 3 inches right now)

[andrew.flavell]

Mine does it at various times sometimes sheds every other day then nothing for 6 weeks.

[BurntOutReefer]

depends alot on enviroment....
my yellow took about a year to go from 3~4" to 8 "....
but then he's under a 400W 10K MH