Fiji leather goes suade

[pseudorand]

Below is my newish Fiji leather. It's been happy in my tank for two weeks now. It's usually a nice red-brown with polyps extended, but this morning it went into hiding as shown in the picture.

The weird part is that it seems to not just have sucked in it's polyps but the whole "skeleton" seems to have shrunk too. Is that even possible, or am I imagining it?

I know, I know water parameters and stuff. But I'm not that worried yet. This is really a leather "behavior" question rather than a "what's killing my frag" question. It's my first leather. How much do they change shape and color over a short period of time?

 

[lapin]

They will shrink as well as withdraw its polyps before shedding

 

[pseudorand]

I'm new here (leathers). What is "shedding"? Normal part of the lifecycle or something to be worried about?

 

[lapin]

Normal. As they grow and/or get stressed they will shed the top layer of skin.