# Sarcophyton Leather has "shrunk"



## shempdevil (Feb 14, 2010)

Over the past year, my Sarcophyton Leather has shrunk to about 1/2 its original diameter.
When fully open, the leather used to measure about 7 to 8 inches in diameter.
Now it appears it has shrunk to about 4 inches.
He also doesn't open his polyps as much as he used to.
They only protrude a little bit now, and this thing used to be wild.

I have raised his position in the tank, and I have put him on the substrate.
After a couple of weeks in all positions, I saw no change.

I have not added or lost any tank inhabitants in over 2 years.
I have not changed my tank maintenance and my water conditions have not changed.
I have even performed several extra 25% water changes about 3 months ago, but the leather is still small.

My T5 lights are about 9 months old, and I am pretty sure that there is no significant degradation of light output in T5 bulbs...that is one of the benefits of using the bulbs.

Any ideas as to what might have happened?

Thank you in advance,

Matthew

TANK DETAILS
46 Gallon Euro Bowfront Tank
36" Nova Extreme Pro 6x39w T5 (2 hrs dawn, 11 hrs daylight, 2 hrs dusk)
45 pounds of Florida Crushed Coral Substrate
45 pounds of Fiji Live Rock
(2) Maxi Jet 1200
Shatterproof Heater
Emperor 400 Biowheel Filter
Tank Established for over 4 years

CORALS
(2) Sarcophyton Leather
(1) Flower Leather
(1) Purple Finger Leather

Fish
(1) Blue Devil Damsel - Chrysiptera cyanea 
(1) Banggai Cardinal - Pterapogon kauderni
(1) Lawnmower Blenny - Salarias fasciatus 
(1) Saddled Valentini Puffer - Canthigaster valentini
(2) Blue Velvet Damsel - Neoglyphidodon oxyodon
(1) Brown Scopus Tang - Zebrasoma scopas


INVERTEBRATES
(5) Turbo Snails
(1) Scarlet Hermit Crabs


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## oscarlover (Feb 14, 2010)

How are your water parameters?
High nitrates can cause what you describe.


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## GetITCdot (Aug 4, 2009)

oscarlover said:


> How are your water parameters?
> High nitrates can cause what you describe.


I have heard about this however atleast in my tank this is not the case as i have over 160ppm nitrate and my devils hand leather has doubled in size in the last couple months. HOWEVER he has stopped puting out his little feeler thingies


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## oscarlover (Feb 14, 2010)

GetITCdot said:


> I have heard about this however atleast in my tank this is not the case as i have over 160ppm nitrate and my devils hand leather has doubled in size in the last couple months. HOWEVER he has stopped puting out his little feeler thingies


160ppm nitrate is dangerously high. I'm surprised you don't have green hair algae problems.
You should really be doing some regular water changes to get that nitrate level down. You might want to look into getting a sulphur denitrator. I have no personal experience with them (I get nervous when my nitrates are over 5-10ppm) but I have read that they work well.


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## GetITCdot (Aug 4, 2009)

i dont do water changes at all as i am in the middle of a no-water change experiment.


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## trouble93 (Nov 8, 2008)

GetITCdot said:


> i dont do water changes at all as i am in the middle of a no-water change experiment.


How is that working out for you? And can I ask the reason for this experiment? I don't want to high-jack this thread


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## Guy (Jan 10, 2010)

Is the Sarco getting enough waterflow?


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## GetITCdot (Aug 4, 2009)

trouble93 said:


> How is that working out for you? And can I ask the reason for this experiment? I don't want to high-jack this thread


it's going much better then I expected as all my params are perfect accept the stupid nitrates.

I'm doing the experiment to try and create my own perfect eco-system. I dont want to have to do littarly anything with it. Other then clean it. I want it to feed itself with amphiopods, i want it to clean it self and control it's own params, etc.


thats the experiment really.


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## trouble93 (Nov 8, 2008)

GetITCdot said:


> it's going much better then I expected as all my params are perfect accept the stupid nitrates.
> 
> I'm doing the experiment to try and create my own perfect eco-system. I dont want to have to do littarly anything with it. Other then clean it. I want it to feed itself with amphiopods, i want it to clean it self and control it's own params, etc.
> 
> ...


I have some other question but again I don't want to high-jack this thread. PM sent.


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## ladyonyx (Apr 20, 2009)

Shempdevil, water quality parameters might help us out with this issue. How are your other corals doing?

GetITCdot, do you have any inverts in your tank? If so, what kind?


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