Leather Disappearing Need Help Really Quick

[juice_1080]

I bought a leather coral on Friday from my LFS. He fragged it about 5 minutes right before I bought it. When I got it home a bunch of the polyps were out. Every day after that there were less and less out and today I see no polyps out whatsoever. My other corals seem just fine (Zoa + Xenia) besides my shroom which seems a little deflated. I have 36w t5 NO and 81w t8. What should I do right now? take it out or leave it in and watch it?
I just checked my levels with a 5in1 strip:
KH - 120ish
pH - 6.0 (never seen it that low before, usually @ 8ish)
NO2 - 0
NO3 - 10ish (normally at this level)
NH4 - 0
SG - 1.025
What should I be doing here? I have never dealt with low pH. I wanna make sure everything is ok

 

[nycbob]

the ph could be wrong. 6.0? thats is extremely low! i'd get a new test kit. what kind of leather is it? sometime leathers need time to recover after fragging. i know yellow leather doesnt take fragging too well. if it was any other kind, gv it time and decent flow.

 

[juice_1080]

I am not 100% positive on what it is. It has brown polyps with greenish fingers coming off of them. It looks similiar to this one but it has the green. https://www.saltwaterfish.com/site_11...ot_parent_id=4
I just fired up my RO/DI unit to do a water change but is there anything else I should do right now? unfortunately unless walmart has pH test kits I don't have the time to make it anywhere to pick one up til wednesday.

 

[petjunkie]

A lot of leathers take a while to adjust into a new tank, plus yours is recovering from being fragged. I have some leathers that will take a month to fully come out if I move them or change things. As long as the base/stalk is healthy looking, standing up by itself and not turning black you should be ok. They like a fair amount of flow and don't like being moved around too much. I would recommend buying some real test kits as dip sticks are very inaccurate, I used them for a while and all the test were way off.

 

[juice_1080]

So this one doesn't seem to have a stalk or anything like that. Is that normal? Its just got basically what looks like a piece of leather and polyps that come out of that. Also how do I get this thing attached to a rock?
So what do you suggest as a good test kit? I think my LFS has all API test kits and thats about it. Are those any decent? The reason I picked up the 5in1 is because when I brought some water in to check how cycled it was when I first started thats what the LFS guy used to check it.
I don't know why these things would have gone bad that quickly. I just used one 2-3 days ago to check my roommates tank and everything was normal. Oh well I didn't really like the things from day one anyways.

 

[nycbob]

api is good. u can put the leather on a lr w not too much flow. after a few days, the leather will attach to the lr.

 

[reefkprz]

Originally Posted by petjunkie
A lot of leathers take a while to adjust into a new tank, plus yours is recovering from being fragged. I have some leathers that will take a month to fully come out if I move them or change things. As long as the base/stalk is healthy looking, standing up by itself and not turning black you should be ok. They like a fair amount of flow and don't like being moved around too much. I would recommend buying some real test kits as dip sticks are very inaccurate, I used them for a while and all the test were way off.
Good info^
if it dies demand a refund. there is no way he should have let you purchase a fresh cut frag. one of the worst things you can do to a any coral is switch tanks right after fragging (its already stressed from the fragging now the coral has to expend extra energy acclimating to your osmotic and light differences). plus the transit time home allows the stress slime in the bag to turn noxious and allowing or enhancing greatly the oppourtunity for infections to set in as since its in that little bag of water all the toxins and slime and bacteria is concentrated there.. you should never transport a fresh cut coral. you should have had him hold it for at least a couple days.
it may come back it may not. they guy who sold it to you should have known better.

 

[reefkprz]

Originally Posted by nycbob
api is good. u can put the leather on a lr w not too much flow. after a few days, the leather will attach to the lr.
right now the coral actually should have moderate flow at minimum to help aid in shedding its slime. but to get it to attach to the rock I agree low flow and it will attach in a couple days.
I would suggest leaving it alone, moving it around right now will only stress it further.

 

[juice_1080]

alright, thanks for the help guys. what can i do to keep it on the rock though? there seems to be something in my tank (i havent figured out who) that likes to knock corals off the place I put them. Should I try to find a looser rubber band or just leave it. I have a feeling it will keep falling otherwise.
I'm positive the guy will give me a refund if it dies. He usually likes to throw in some free stuff when I buy from the shop. That and hes usually very helpful. If I would have known anything about frags and fragging I wouldn't have taken it in the first place.

 

[reefkprz]

Originally Posted by juice_1080
alright, thanks for the help guys. what can i do to keep it on the rock though?
try cageing it with toothpicks. take a bunch of tooth picks and poke them into the rock around the leather frag forming a sort of cage. this will keep it on the rock without stressing the leather further.

 

[juice_1080]

alright I will definitely try to do that. Hopefully this thing lives.

 

[juice_1080]

So I don't have any toothpicks in the house and I didn't feel like running to the store so I ended up using plastic cocktail mixers (don't worry they didn't make it into any mixed drinks yet) I have 3 of them surrounding the coral. This will be ok right?
There are a few little polyps sticking out of it right now so hopefully it will be fine. On another note since you seem to know quite a bit about corals. I have a single what appears to be a green eye zoa (which is finally splitting) on a unoccupied snail shell. Well was unoccupied, it seems as though a micro-star decided to call this shell home for the past week and his tentacles are constantly rubbing up on the outer edge of the zoa. do you think this is going to harm the zoa? if it is how do I get the star out of their everytime i try to get him he pulls completely into the shell.

 

[juice_1080]

I did the toothpick idea and now its looking pretty good. How long should I keep these toothpicks on here? It looks like an impaling waiting to happen.

 

[zeroc]

how big is your tank?

 

[juice_1080]

29g

 

[reefkprz]

Originally Posted by juice_1080
I did the toothpick idea and now its looking pretty good. How long should I keep these toothpicks on here? It looks like an impaling waiting to happen.
it usually take about 4 days to a week to attach. maybe a little more for a frag that went through that much. patience never hurt in this hobby and the plastic coctail things are great.

 

[juice_1080]

yea unfortunately they did not work tho so I ended up surrounding it with toothpicks. at least it seems to be looking good now.