The Puffer Forum

Can you keep different types of leather corals in the same tank? I'm just asking because I introduced a colt coral into the tank last Saturday, and since then it seems like my big beautiful cabbage leather has shrunk and shed. It does this every month or so anyway, so it could just be that it was its "time of the month", but on the chance that there's some chemical warfare going on, I thought I'd post and see what you guys think.

I am not sure why but my cabbage leather does this for a day or two a month too. I also have a colt that grows strong but as far as know, the colt doesn't use chemical warfare. If i am wrong, somebody please let me know. I do know it's the leathers that uses chemical warfare and i have heard it's their skin that peels and lands on other coral. I've never had a problem with it besides it wilting up here and there.

I keep many different leathers together.

One more comment. I think mine always wilts up when it is getting ready to peel. Mine spent the last two days wilted and now it's out full and pealing. Just an observation.

Yup, that's how they grow. Kinda like a lizard.

I've had the cabbage for right at a year, and yes the first couple of times it shed it scared me because it looks so much like it must be dying and you don't know what you did wrong and how to save it. Now, I know it's just normal, and evidently it was just a coincidence that it happened to shed when I added the colt because both the cabbage and the colt are looking great now. Come to think about it, the cabbage was pretty much due for a shed, so I was worried for no good reason (as usual).

I got this reef tank set up about a year ago, but only just now am I starting to finally get into it and get excited about it. I think what happened to cool my jets on it back when I started was that I got a couple of rocks of zoas and they never would look good for me at home, and one rock never even opened up much so I got discouraged even though my cabbage leather was doing fine as were my star polyps. I took the zoa rocks back to the store and after that kind of lost interest in the tank itself and was more concentrating on the valentini that lives in it. But last week I decided to try again with some green zoas and, after a day of adjusting to their new surroundings, to this day they looked great. It gives me hope that I might someday have me a neat little reef tank after all!

As far as the zoas (& everything else alive in your tank), check out my Vitamin C dosing.

OK thanks, will do.