Yellow leather Toadstool turning brown

Goomba · #1 09-28-2018, 03:03 PM

I think it's pretty obvious the store you bought it from was misinformed or lied to you.

You saw it totally white in a store, brought it home, it got darker after some time, then after more time got even darker. That is a perfectly typical experience with a bleached coral, white in store>>yellow later at home>>brown later on.

The picture posted is what you can expect from a fiji yellow toadstool, if you see them brighter it is because they are stressed out and either in the process of bleaching or recovering from bleaching. You cant force them to stay that color, they will always drift one direction or the other depending on if they are happy or not. It is also possible you've seen dyed ones, the local coral collectors used to dye them yellow so people would buy all the brown ones when they ran out of nice ones to find.

Your expectations of a leather coral are too high. There is no such thing as a permanently fluorescent yellow toadstool.

mrdss · #2 09-28-2018, 03:37 PM

White to yellow is normal ? So you are saying there are no true yellow leathers ? What I had was not a bleached looking yellow but pure true yellow.

Goomba · #3 09-28-2018, 05:51 PM

There are yellow leathers, just not "lemon" yellow that you might be expecting. I found some images to help explain:

Bleached out yellow leather, what you'd see in a store

Transitioning to normal color, but looks really nice and bright yellow

Natural color that you should expect in the end, right on the mariculture racks in the ocean

There will be slightly nicer ones, and blue leds or actinic bulbs MAY help the yellow pop a bit, but they should all end up about the same

mrdss · #4 09-28-2018, 06:37 PM

The pictures helped immensely. So, no one is able to maintain that nice bright yellow ? They ALL eventually turn to the mustard yellow color ?

smokinreefer · #5 09-28-2018, 07:46 PM

Yes, thanks for the pictures!!! They actually are quite helpful.

It sounds like maybe you need to look for another one of these nice white toadstools that you were lucky enough to find. Since under your care it'll turn into a true yellow toadstool. And then when it's back to its true yellow form, do some testing and logging of parameters. If it eventually darkens up again, do some more testing and logging and compare them from the earlier results.

I'm thinking that maybe a way to sustain the bright yellow would be a low nutrient high light environment?

Goomba · #6 09-28-2018, 08:49 PM

Yes for the most part they are a "mustard yellow". However there can still be nicer ones. Think about some Grey Poupon dijon mustard, kinda plain brownish yellow. Then think of Heinz brand, a sharper mustard yellow. Just keep it in a clean, natural state and it will eventually show it's true colors whether they are nice or not.

The only way to save a browned out coral is if it's currently in a system with too high of nutrients and you then correct that problem, it can "brighten" up a bit. Chronic low nutrients may lighten it as well but that is going to set up other hurdles for you to jump. However if the system it's in has optimal parameters then that's just the color it is, sometimes you have to get lucky.

mrdss · #7 09-28-2018, 08:52 PM

Finding another one is highly unlikely. I don't think the store realized they were yellow leathers since they looked almost bleach white.

I'm sure if the store realized it was a yellow leather they would not have sold me a large piece for only $30.00 tax included. If I knew then what I know now I would have bought the 4-5 pieces that were there.

Come to think of it I did see some semi white pieces just a few weeks ago. They were not the same white.