Leather coral ID?

I got this little guy today when my wife bought a frag rock with mushrooms on it that came with some other stuff as well. I don't know what kind of leather coral it is though, and I want to make sure that I have it in the proper spot in my tank. Thanks. ;D





This is the frag rock/piece it came on:

 

I am pretty darn sure... about 97% that it is a Devil's hand. The other 3% is telling me it MAY be a toadstool. But I really do think it's a Devil's Hand. Here is a picture of mine for a refference. The only difference to me with yours compared to mine is that yours is darker. everything else looks identical to the surface of my Devil's Hand. Gives you an idea on how these guys grow too They like a lot of flow! And moderate lighting. I have mine directly infront of my powerhead where the flow from the powerhead and the canister collide, so it basically gets blasted with flow and it loves it! Especially when it sheds so the slime gets blasted off real easy. But they are also fine with moderate flow. Low flow though they get a little upset lol.

 

It does look like your devil's hand. After looking at it more closely just now, I actually think there are two frags right there. It looks like one was glued on to the other lol. Should I leave them together or separate them?

 

It really doesn't matter. You can sperate them if you want, that way you have two. devil's Hands grow pretty quick. If you leave them together they may actually end up merging or the second one that has attached itself may just end up being a finger or something. To seperate them just take a razor blade and in one quick motion just slice it where you want to sperate them. Don't use a sawing acting, it will cause more damage and will take longer to heal and more of a chance of infection. If you can't get it in one slice, then go back and do another slice in the same direction to finish the cut. So, it really depends if you want two or not. Good luck.

 

Ok, I think I will leave it how it is right now. Is it normal for the polyps to not be extended all day?

 

Yes. Leathers are funny like that.They don't like to be touched so be carefull when handling it.

 

Ok, ty. I know my mushrooms are only extended for a certain amount of a time per day on average.

 

Well, remember you have just got it! It is still acclimating and the polyps will be in and out at random times during the day. Once acclimated and happy where it is the polyps of a devil's hand are out all day. When lights go out it shrivles and gets smaller and the polyps go in. Then in the morning it takes a little bit for a devils hand to fully awaken. It will start to get slightly bigger slowly and the polyps will start to come out. It will be at its biggest and happiest about 2 hours, give or take, after the lights come on in the morning, and it should stay like that all day until lights out for bed time. When a devils hand is fully acclimated, healthy and happy the polyps are extended all day. Unless a hermit or snail or something crawls over it, then they retract, but then are back out again a few minutes later. I just wanna warn you that devils hands shed a layer of slime once and a while. How often depends on a few different factors. But when it is shedding you will probably actually think is it dead! LOL I did when I first saw this happen. It shrivels up as tight as it can with no polyps at all and the color of it gets pretty dark with a greyish haze over it. It can take 3 or 4 days to a week, week and a half to fully finish a shed. You will actually start to see the slime coat about 2 days or so into the shedding cycle. It will start to lift slightly more and more each day until the flow finally blows it off the devils hand. That's why devils hands like such high flow, the flow helps the coral shed that slime off. I like to help my devils hand along by taking a turkey baster and blasting the loose slime right off and then I suck it up and remove it from the tank because I have sps corals and ithe slime can sometimes upset sps corals, but if you only have softies and LPS corals for the most part you don't have to remove the slime. There are creatures in the live rock that will happily eat the slime coat. I wanted to warn you about this because I thought I was losing my devils hand when it first happened to me lol No one had warned me! Just a heads up! LOL.

 

Yea, I actually found mushrooms to be more moody and sensitive than a devils hand, in my opinion! Even the happiest mushroom coral will just randomly shart to shrivle because something that you can't see is bugging it lol A devils hand isn't as moody at all! My yellow clown goby will actually sit on my devils hand and the only part that seems "upset" are the few polyps touching the fish, they kind of just close up slightly, but not fully retract. Then when the clown goby moves on, not even a minute later the polyps are right back out. It's more like the polyps just didn't want to get damaged more than it was actually bothered. A mushroom on the other hand... picky picky lol If my mushrooms weren't in the perfect flow or perfect lighting, they looked like crap. My devils hand doesn't care were I put it as long as it is in no less than a moderate flow. I got fed up with my mushrooms and traded all of them for a nice sized piece of colt coral. I love the colt!! Awesome coral!

 

Thanks Holly, that is a lot of good info.
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