Leather tree coral tearing...!!

I woke up today to find my leather tree with one of its major branches leaning over and at least partially torn!

The tank is great, and this leather tree is probably my most successful coral - it's doubled or tripled in size since I got it and the polyps are always beautifully extended, even last night before bed.

But come this morning one of the branches (oddly, one of the more central, vertical, branches, not the horizontal ones) is bent over with a good sized tear forming where is meets what I'd consider the base/nexus of the coral. The tear isn't violent, and the tissue looks healthy, but its definitely separation - the tissue in the tear almost has some filamenty-looking bits, like the leather has where it attaches to the rockwork.

Other branches are happy - polyps out, fully inflated, etc.

What can cause this????

 

what livestock do you have in the tank?

 

Sounds like reproduction of the leather. Many soft corals will drop branches and pieces. Usually nothing is wrong with the corals, just doing what comes naturally when they are happy.

 

+1 on above post. tearing is a means of reproduction. i would try placing the torn limb in a low flow area to see that it attaches itself properly. my Kenya Tree Coral does the same thing.
I have often heard these corals referred to as "weeds of the saltwater aquarium" due to the fact that they split and grow, split and grow.
i love mine
i hope yours splits and continues to reproduce

 

When my Kenya Tree coral drops a piece, I place the piece in a shallow tub with holes in the side of it. I put some old rock substrate in the bottom and place the tub in a low flow corner of the tank. Put the lid on. In a week the broken piece will have attached to a piece of the small rocks and I now have a frag I can glue to a plug.

 

Tank livestock, hmm, what do I have in there?? Lets see... there are two clowns, a starry blenny, three chromises, a yellow watchman with his tiger pistol "life partner", some blue leg hermits and a couple cerinth snails.

Other corals - GSPs, two birdnests, a scroll coral, maxima clam, bubble tip anemone, strawberry monti, hammers, and frogspawn. Nothing very near to the leather.

We did a 15 or 20g water change two days ago - tank has about 90g total volume. Water quality before and after the change was excellent 0/0/0 for the big three. Salinity is 1.024/5.

Is a Kenya tree the same as a leather tree?

I thought of reproduction, but then I worried myself into thinking that only small branches are dropped for reproduction, while this one is quite substantial, maybe the size of a film canister, with plenty of its own branching.

 

maybe. heres is a pic of mine, Amaurer.
i hope you dont mind me posting pics on your thread. i just wanted to show you what a kenya tree coral is. sorry about the quality, its the best pic i have on hand.

 

Agreed. Mine has done this before. The thing uses a similar method to kind of "walk" up my rock too. I have pictures of it in a thread somewhere around here...

When mine does, I throw them away but good advise.

If it separates by tearing, the 'new' piece will often have already connected to the rock work. But not always.

 

http://www.3reef.com/forums/show-of...hil-55-gallon-thread-56156-25.html#post977609

There it be.

 

Yup sounds like you are proud parent of a leather baby...

Thanks for the tip on the kenya, I have a green kenya tree that every so often drops like ten branches and never know what to do with them.