wilting & shrinking toadstool

Hey all...
For 6 years I've had an awesomely amazing toadstool in my 180g....my 3 ocellaris clowns host in it and have been and it still flourished! It was the biggest and (IMO) prettiest coral we have in there...until recently ........I thought maybe it started wilting and looks like it's shrinking when we got new lights a couple months ago, but chris says it's because we stopped using bio-pellets.

I guess I could just let it go - - I'm told it will come back..............but my heart breaks every time I have to look in the tank and see how sad my 3 clowns are now .....it seems as though it just looks worse every day....it's been a little over a week now since it's "decline" and I just can't sit around and wait ........I'm afraid of losing it so I'm hoping that someone has had this experience and can give me some suggestions to help bring it back.....................please.

Barbara, that is so sad!!

I have a small toadstool, and in my experience, it likes low lighting. I had mine in a bright spot in my tank when I first got it, and it never opened and seemed really angry!

Since you guys just got new lights, that leads me to believe it is "melting" due to too much light. Maybe try moving it into a more shaded part of the tank with a little flow???

Barb you know we need pics!!!

Perhaps it's to the point that it needs fragged and sent some of the pieces to.... me. yeah that will do. I'll make sure that my part grows big and healthy

Really though. Post up some pics so we know what you're talking about. I've never seen one as big as you guys have, let alone seen one with any problems.

Sorry dear!!!

I've never had much luck with them myself so I can't give any good advise. Hope for the best for ya.

Anyone know the lifespan of one of these? Could it just be old and the change in light be like when an old person has that one good fall? I read in the last aquarium fish magazine about a really old fungia that died for no reason and created a ton of baby fungia. Throwin stuff at the wall to see if something sticks... You would think if it started with the light change that is your initial culprit.

thank you all so far.......
while I suspected lighting as a cause, chris say's it's because he stopped using bio pellets and it has nothing to do with the lights....

and unfortunately, the coral has himself attached to the bare bottom now....he's already down as far as he can go

If the lighting is contributing to this, I wonder if I can dim the section over him with something????

and....if it isn't the lighting at all contributing, does anyone know what I can do to help him live out the bio pellet withdrawal????

I dont think its getting too much light. Its on the very bottom of the 180 and off to the side and we only run 150 watt MH on that tank.

My thinking is its from the bio-pellets. We always had nitrates around 5ppm to 7ppm and when we started with the pellets in 2 weeks nitrates went to 0. After a few weeks at 0 is when it started to shrink. A few frags in the frag tank started to look like crap too so i turned off the pellet reactor.

Ohhhh he is not getting any nitrates to live on. Alot of people who have sps with 0 nitrates say the cant keep softies alive. I guess this is further proof. Give that guy some "dirty water".

Damn you Julian Sprung and your plastic! Thanks for the books though.

Originally Posted by Variko

Ohhhh he is not getting any nitrates to live on. Alot of people who have sps with 0 nitrates say the cant keep softies alive. I guess this is further proof. Give that guy some "dirty water".

Right. and the reason we started with the biopellets was we used to have a lot of sps but now we cant keep them.

I don't think its the light, or the nitrates. Mine gets a lot of light in the mid level of my tank, and my nitrates have been at 0 over a year now.

How long did it look good for? and does it shed at all, or in spots?

I didnt quite understand that Chris. You got the bio pellets for sps, but now you cant keep sps? What do you mean?

Chris means he was using the bio-pellets to get the nitrates down to 0 in an attempt to keep SPS - but, the bio-pellets worked too well, and stripped all the nitrates out that were feeding the giant leather...

since the leather is so HUGE I am sure it was making a major impact on the nitrate levels in the tank.... I'd bet if you even took the leather out for a few days the trates would spike!!

why don't ya feed more chris?? a little extra 5 star reef bar cant hurt anything

Oh, so he when he said "now we cant keep them", he meant softies not sps. Are the sps doing well with the lack of nitrate?

Still cant keep sps. last one i tried was a free bee from Billrob and it slowly died.

The leather had been fine for years. Its never really gotten full polyp extension but has always grown well. Ive also never noticed it shed at all.

my leather has never shed once in three years..it was 3inches tall when i bought him and now is over 19inches tall and bout 11inches wide ...it has grown into many of the oyster clusters i use as live rock...when i got my new lighting the polps where gone for 5 weeks..plus before they went away they where a light brown color and when they came out they r now a neon green..i just signed up today for here and will have pics up soon..

Mine is up high and under T-5's. It seems to like high flow. I lost a finger leather when I got my NO3 and PO4 down, but it was not in an area with high flow.

Originally Posted by Variko

Anyone know the lifespan of one of these? Could it just be old and the change in light be like when an old person has that one good fall? I read in the last aquarium fish magazine about a really old fungia that died for no reason and created a ton of baby fungia. Throwin stuff at the wall to see if something sticks... You would think if it started with the light change that is your initial culprit.

Mine is about 15 years in captivity, no sign of old age at all.

I had the same problem with a 15 year old 30” wide toadstool leather a few months ago as well. After doing a few massive (100gal each) water changes it starting to come back

Maybe it is looking for the food it was use to getting??

Is it moving on its own?

Well i had similar issue with my devilshand leather. It shrinked and started to denegerate from the edges like something is munching on it. Little pieces started to fall off.

I was sure It was dying, but after few weeks it recovered, giving mini leather corals from those droplings.