Bare spots on hammer base tissue

[mochaclownlover]

So about 2months ago I noticed some bare spots appearing on the base tissue of my hammer corals. I had something similar happen to my framer colony(still hanging on) and wasn’t sure what the cause was. I found out that my pH was dropping to 7.6, it has always stayed at 8.2-8.4, but took a dive. Probably due to elevated co2 levels in my house(family of 5 plus 2 dogs and not leaving as much due to covid).Alk also took a dive at that time, landing at 6.9… As of now I have gotten ph up to 8.0-8.2 (and alk at 8.5) with a co2 scrubber, but the bare spots in the base tissue are still present and slowly expanding so I’m not sure if it’s actually a pH issue or not. Also having an issue with my wall hammer(assuming its from the same problem) that looks like parts of the skeleton are dissolved from under parts of the tissue and recession on part of the colony. I’ve checked for pests, nothing. sent out an icp test which I don’t think shows much out of balance that would cause this. I’ll post the results as well.
Current parameters:
pH: 8.0-8.2ppm
Nitrate: 15-20ppm
Nitrites:0ppm
Phos: 0.2ppm
Mag:1400ppm
Cal:460ppm
Alk:8.5dkh
I will note that I’ve moved frags of these to my nano and the recession seems to have stopped all together, so obviously something in this tank that’s messing with them.

These are what the framers look like currently

 

[mochaclownlover]

 

[mochaclownlover]

Some more pics from tonight. ph: 8.0 Alk:8.5

Purple branching hammer, darker skeleton is recession over past couple months. Rapid recession of the entire head seems to come after the original holes in the base tissue get large

 

[Shirak]

wooa that's a lot of new hammer heads starting around the skeleton. Hard to say. I would think that would be a good sign all those baby heads. The tissue was also covering quite far down on the skeleton so maybe it's normal that it lose some of that?

Parameters look fine but swings may have messed with them. Last photo bottom right polyp looks bleached so I wonder if it's a light intensity issue? Or maybe nutrition? Your NO3 and PO4 are high enough but I found mine still needed to be target feed when I was running similar nitrate and phosphate.

From the ICP I would bump up Ca to 450ish and Mg to 1400 but I don't know if that's the main issue.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Hammers don’t usually have connective tissues all the way down the Skelton.

 

[mochaclownlover]

wooa that's a lot of new hammer heads starting around the skeleton. Hard to say. I would think that would be a good sign all those baby heads. The tissue was also covering quite far down on the skeleton so maybe it's normal that it lose some of that?

Parameters look fine but swings may have messed with them. Last photo bottom right polyp looks bleached so I wonder if it's a light intensity issue? Or maybe nutrition? Your NO3 and PO4 are high enough but I found mine still needed to be target feed when I was running similar nitrate and phosphate.

From the ICP I would bump up Ca to 450ish and Mg to 1400 but I don't know if that's the main issue.

That's what I thought when it first started happening, but I would have thought the tissue at the bottom would have slowly started to move up the skeleton rather than just having random holes appear in the middle of the tissue. Especially with how my frammer took the whole thing awhile back, the tissue recedes all the way up to the base of the polyp to the point where some just bailed.

I'll try and bump MAG and CAL up this week and see if that helps.

That one bleached polyp is actually just being shaded by the other colony, been meaning to trim it but haven't done it yet.

What do you usually feed yours? I have some brs reef chili on hand I can try.

 

[Shirak]

That's what I thought when it first started happening, but I would have thought the tissue at the bottom would have slowly started to move up the skeleton rather than just having random holes appear in the middle of the tissue. Especially with how my frammer took the whole thing awhile back, the tissue recedes all the way up to the base of the polyp to the point where some just bailed.

I'll try and bump MAG and CAL up this week and see if that helps.

That one bleached polyp is actually just being shaded by the other colony, been meaning to trim it but haven't done it yet.

What do you usually feed yours? I have some brs reef chili on hand I can try.

I use a variety of lps pellets and dried foods, reef chili among them, although it's a bit fine for my taste for large polyp like Euphyllia. I also chop up frozen mysis blocks sometimes.

I am surprised to see that much tissue on the outside of the skeleton also. Mine typically don't get that far so not sure if it's an issue in this case or not. Definitely an issue if it recedes all the way up the outside to the polyp though! Recession to me usually says there is either an issue with calcification or lack of sufficient nutrition. The two can be related as well. Without sufficient nutrients from food and par then calcification will suffer and recession/bailout happens. But if there is a problem with water parameters even in the presence of proper nutrients and par then the same thing can happen and tissue recedes or polyps bail.

These polyps look kind of closed up. Photos at night when they are not so open? Do they open fully during the day?

 

[mochaclownlover]

I've got some frozen food I can chop up and use with it.

Just from other hammers I've seen and even the others in the tank, the tissue does seem to go further down than most. It possibly being a calcification issue was why I really started cracking down on pH and alk levels, not sure it it just hasn't been enough time though since I was really only able to get the pH up a couple weeks ago.

Yeah I should have mentioned that, I took the photos at night.

During the day they are all fully extended and don't act like anything is wrong. The par is definitely on the higher end, frags of them get much darker in other spots of the tank with lower light. The radion's only running at 34% and they've been fine with it for years(It actually use to run at 38%), until now.

I'm tempted to try and reset the colony just to try and get it a bit further back and down to see if that helps at all.

 

[mochaclownlover]

Figured I’d drop an update on this. Once I got my pH back up to above 8.2 and ALK @8.5-9, recession completely stopped and all colonies have been acting normal

 

[Pico bam]

Hammers don’t usually have connective tissues all the way down the Skelton.

Healthy fast growing euphyllia have tissue very far down the skeleton. Its one of the best ways to judge growth and health of a coral. If you've ever seen people asking for a skeleton picture this is generally why. So seeing this recession is a little troubling but extremely common imo.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Healthy fast growing euphyllia have tissue very far down the skeleton. Its one of the best ways to judge growth and health of a coral. If you've ever seen people asking for a skeleton picture this is generally why. So seeing this recession is a little troubling but extremely common imo.

Yeah mine does. I just mean they don’t have tissue from the heads clean down to the rock it’s glued on like my candy canes.

 

[Zoa_Fanatic]

Healthy fast growing euphyllia have tissue very far down the skeleton. Its one of the best ways to judge growth and health of a coral. If you've ever seen people asking for a skeleton picture this is generally why. So seeing this recession is a little troubling but extremely common imo.

Like I’ve got a tiny hammer that’s stupid and split at like a 120d angle. Those two heads are splitting into more heads and each “cluster” has tissue that connects but they’re so far apart and so “long” out from the stalk that the clusters tissues don’t connect to each other.