Nitrates

[algy1943]

My nitrates have been high 40 , and my new large leather coral has closed up for a week now and it's tentacles gone , I have acquired Red Sea No3:Po4-X and have used 2 doses , my nitrates have come down to 15mg but the Phosphates are still bit high 2.5mg will these conditions caused my leather to close ?

[Khemul]

Soft corals can be tricky. Many of them shed. Which basically means they close up for up to a couple weeks, look rather sickly, then suddenly make a complete turn around (complete with growth spurt). So sometimes the diagnosis for "my leather is acting weird" is, it isn't.

40ppm nitrate isn't horrible for a soft coral. It is high for other corals though, and it doesn't hurt for nitrates to be low (although with softies, you don't want nitrates to be effectively non-existent).

That does sound like a rather high phosphate reading, which could well be upsetting the coral. Do you have any other corals in the tank? That can also be a good guide for judging issue vs shedding. If it is the only coral then I'd get the phosphates down and see if it improves. Otherwise a picture could help judge the overall look of the coral.