Finger Leather Coral Dying?

[reefgreg]

Hi all,
New to the forum. I have a 60 Gallon corner aquarium with a 20 gallon sump and 50 pounds of live rock. I have 2 clowns, 1 atlantic blue tang, 2 yellow tail damsels and an assortment of inverts.
I have had a large piece of finger leather coral in the tank for the past 4 months and it has grown and even moved off of the fragment of live rock to attach itself to the larger piece of rock. I came home from a weekend away and found it to be limp and starting to change from the pinkish hue to a green hue. I've also noticed that where it is attached to the live rock seems to be a little less solid than before.
My water parameters are good:

Salinity: 1.026
Nitrate: 10 PPM
Nitrite: 0
Phosphate: 0.10
Ammonia: 0
PH 7.8
Temperature: 82 F

I've attached a couple of pictures to better show the issue. I've read in a few places that this is part of the natural molting process but I am not sure. Has anyone come across this before?
Thanks for the help1

[johnnyriker22]

Looks like your leather is starting it's shedding process. Do you see any of the skin lifting off yet? They will shed their skin and will be just like new. I would just let it take it's course. Maybe help it along with a turkey baster to help it shed it's skin.

johnny

[straightrazorguy]

It doesn't look like it's dying. These things are tough as nails. If you haven't had any major parameter swing in your tank lately, then it's only shedding. It happens periodically for no apparent reason...

[pinkreef]

looks good to me too :smile:

[reefgreg]

The leather isn't shedding any skin at this point and further, when I got home last night, the whole piece had detached from the live rock and was lying on the substrate. Still firm and the branches were open but no longer attached, where a week ago it was fully attached onto the rock. Thanks for the replies

[Patwa]

looks like a kenya tree...very hardy species....apart from it detaching, it looks healthy.

but yeah, to have it detach of its own free will is kinda unusual....are there are pests near it? maybe something nipping or predating on it, especially at the base? maybe too much direct or laminar flow in its direction?

[reefgreg]

No pests or anything that I have seen nipping at it. The only new items added to the tank in the last 6 weeks have been 2 small yellow tail damsels. I have one small outbreak of green hair algae in another spot in the tank but otherwise all has been steady

[reefgreg]

Well after a couple of weeks it seems to be on the road to recovery....it never did shed its skin or anything but has reattached itself to the live rock. Thanks for the comments & thoughts