Finger Leather Problems

[down&dirty]

I recently purchased a finger leather and it transitioned into my tank very well. The body of the leather is turning white and looks to be decomposing. I recently moved it to a different current and lighting position in the tank and there were white pieces of what looked like small splinters on the rock where the leather was sitting. What can I do? I am trying to get pictures up but I don't want to depend on that. Do I need to remove these and replace them into quarintine? Should I go ahead and frag them with a razor and place them on the rocks that I want them on?

 

[Len]

The white splinters you see are called spicules: calcium "shards" that are what could be considered the skeleton of soft corals. It's what makes them rigid to a degree. Yours is probably infected at the base and I recommend you cut off the healthy portions to save the colony.

 

[down&dirty]

Thank you very much for the quick reply. I was planning on cutting away at it tonight to try and salvage all that I could. It will only be the second time I have cut into a coral so I wanted to have at least a little encouragement to do this. I will try and salvage the colony tonight.

 

[Mihai]

Can you tell us how it went in a few weeks/months when everything is decided one way or the other?

Thanks,
Mihai

 

[down&dirty]

So for an update, the cutting went as good as I could have hoped. My once large finger leather is now 14 smaller leathers attached to anything I could get my hands on. I am trying super glue, toothpicks, and rubberbands on various frags to see if I can tell a difference. I did all my cutting with a brand new xacto blade which I thought would be sharp enough, but next time a pair of medical scissors will do the cutting. These things are really a lot tougher than they appear. I did the cutting that first night and the frags have been in a medium flow area of my tank since and are all open and looking good. Time will tell!

 

[down&dirty]

I haven't really seen a difference in between the frags that I attached with gel super glue ang the ones held on with toothpicks. All the leather frags are thriving. Glad that I could save some of the colony and help some friends get fingure leathers. Out of the 14 frags that I made, I kept 4 and I am trading 4 and gave the rest to friends to help populate their tanks. The frags are growing like weeds and the final ones that are still on plugs will be removed this weekend and superglued to some existing rocks in my tank. I am moving in several months across the country so I am trying to get some sweet combo rocks before I have to sell everything. Right now I am working on several mushroom combos and a couple of leather zoos combos.