Did a toadstool kill my hammer?

[Beau_B]

This is a hammer frag that had a toadstool as a roommate:

Question: is the toadstool responsible?

Full story:
I got a bunch of frags (hammer, blasto, gorgonian, toadstool, frogskin, and a half dozen zoas) from two sources but the ones I’m most concerned about were from the same source but different tanks.

Received last week, dipped in Bayer, went into a 10g tank with LR from established tank and a power head with new water. I am planning to do a minimum of 45 days as I just had to go fallow and do not want to go through that again.

Things looked good for the most part during the week. Then Friday I moved some things around because a couple zoas weren’t opening and the hammer seemed to not like the flow. As a result it was placed next to the toadstool.

Friday evening everything was ticked off but I didn’t worry too much because I had my hands in the tank earlier.

Saturday morning the torch was fully receded, skeleton exposed and the blasto shrunk... zoas all closed.

Pulled the toadstool and threw it in a different tank, 50% WC using DT water, and added a bag of carbon.

Things are “better” but I don’t know if the hammer will recover and I would like to confirm the toadstool as the culprit or if it’s something else. Can I do anything to help the hammer?

I did have another acro frag that RTN’d the first night and croaked but I figured that was an acclimation issue or bad luck... I figured SPS wasn’t going to be easy.

Parameters are all in line with fresh mix (IO) and salinity is 1.026 with calibrated refractometer. PH 7.8

Thanks. Apologize for the long read.

 

[Uncle99]

It would be helpful if you posted all your parameters and length of time they have been stable.

Your version of good parameters may be quite different than other members and ruling out a chemistry issue is first.

The leather playing chemical warfare, maybe, if they are not encroaching on one another, why fight?

I could envision the hammer stinging the leather though.

It may retract for too much light....too much flow.

Recovery, it’s not dead, so maybe, I have not had much luck with damaged “E” type corals.

 

[tankstudy]

Received last week, dipped in Bayer, went into a 10g tank with LR from established tank and a power head with new water. I am planning to do a minimum of 45 days as I just had to go fallow and do not want to go through that again.

Things looked good for the most part during the week. Then Friday I moved some things around because a couple zoas weren’t opening and the hammer seemed to not like the flow. As a result it was placed next to the toadstool.

If a lot of things are looking bad in the frag tank then it's most likely something wrong with the water. For frag tanks, it's common to see ammonia appear at low levels a couple days later in a tank with no bacteria/live rock.

You should always test to see how much ammonia your frag tank can handle in 24 hours. Even though it's live rock from your system it doesn't necessarily mean it will have enough bacteria on it to handle the amount of ammonia being produced from your frags.

 

[Beau_B]

Right. It isn’t “stable” as the qt was set up the day before, the rock was in another tank, so the water was purely IO mixed up. I didn’t do a full test on it.

Now with DT transferred water it’s:
78F
1.026
7.8ph
8.5dkh
440ca
5NO3/0P

The light is a A029 with setting I have successfully used on previous coral QT (hammer/torch/zoa/acans) and the flow is moderate to low. I wouldn’t think it would have the flesh recede fully over night because of the flow. It went 5 days under the same light and in that water looking fine, then near dead one morning.

 

[Beau_B]

Ok, 2 things... didn’t know ammonia was an issue for coral, and where would it be coming from? There is a large piece of established rock in there too.

A bare bottom tank that I’m not feeding... no source. Water is clear. I’ll test for it right now but after the WC it won’t really tell anything.

 

[vetteguy53081]

First thing you want to do is test 24 hours after fresg water change as you will get false readings.
You stated all parameters are good. Unfortunately they are not hence the stress the hammer is showing.
Moderate light and water flow.
Recommended:

Salinity 1.025
ph 8.1 - 8.3
Temp 77-79
CA 450
Mag 1300
Alk 8-9
Ammonia < .04
Phos < .05
Nitrate < .03

Are you using RODI water or tap water from the faucet ?
Also, What test kit(s) are you using ?

I DOUBT LEATHER PLAYED ANY ROLE IN THE BEHAVIOR OF HAMMER

** Hopefully you acclimated the hammer to the diffrent tank, and did not " plop and drop" it in

 

[tankstudy]

Ok, 2 things... didn’t know ammonia was an issue for coral, and where would it be coming from?

A bare bottom tank that I’m not feeding... no source. Water is clear. I’ll test for it right now but after the WC it won’t really tell anything.

Any damage/dead tissue caused to the coral from the source to you will turn in to ammonia. You dipped your corals to kill things. Those things killed will degrade over a few days in to ammonia as well. Even though you don't see it with your eyes it's happening at a smaller scale.

Ammonia will burn the flesh of your corals. At lower levels some corals can tolerate it for a period of time like a couple days but if you let them sit in it for too long, it's usually not too good. More sensitive corals like sticks, you can see the skin slough right off in a short period of time.

 

[Beau_B]

I said the water was fresh mix, just to clarify.

Hammer was temp acclimated, dipped 5min, and dropped.

It was doing fine for 5 days, then did a full retraction.

It is now starting to come back out.

Yes RODI. Salifert. I have had corals successfully for over a year, it’s just this batch had the unusual incident. My first toadstool which I have read can be toxic, and now that it’s out of the tank things are improving. It struck me as suspicious since the decline occurred the day I relocated the corals within the tank. No other changes.

Maybe you are right then that the water was bad somehow. I’ll test things again, but I feel the numbers I posted fall within acceptable ranges.

Ammonia is 0 as of a minute ago.

 

[tankstudy]

I said the water was fresh mix, just to clarify.

Hammer was temp acclimated, dipped 5min, and dropped.

It was doing fine for 5 days, then did a full retraction.

It is now starting to come back out.

Yes RODI. Salifert. I have had corals successfully for over a year, it’s just this batch had the unusual incident. My first toadstool which I have read can be toxic, and now that it’s out of the tank things are improving. It struck me as suspicious since the decline occurred the day I relocated the corals within the tank. No other changes.

Maybe you are right then that the water was bad somehow. I’ll test things again, but I feel the numbers I posted fall within acceptable ranges.

Ammonia is 0 as of a minute ago.

Is your display tank at 5 ppm nitrate?

 

[Beau_B]

Interesting I did not know ammonia could build that fast w/o fish or food and have that effect.

I did add prime when setting the tank up as a precaution but obviously that wouldn’t help days out.

The only stick in the tank is a frogskin and it hasn’t shown significant distress during this time. Not great PE, but it isn’t melting away either.

 

[Beau_B]

Is your display tank at 5 ppm nitrate?

I would have to go check it, but historically yes.

 

[Spieg]

Hard to say what happened, but if it was chemical warfare, it could just as easily been on the part of the ticked off Zoanthids as the Toadstool Leather. Glad to hear the Hammer seems to be recovering.

 

[Beau_B]

NO3 of DT is at 2ppm right now.

I guess it will remain a mystery for now. The hammer does seem to be improving with every hour, so it’s a wait and see.

I find it hard to believe it the parameters were off so far that it completely tanked in an 18hr period but still much to learn.

I’m also going to look into the ammonia/coral interactions as that’s totally new to me and hasn’t been an issue in the past.

 

[tankstudy]

NO3 of DT is at 2ppm right now.

I guess it will remain a mystery for now. The hammer does seem to be improving with every hour, so it’s a wait and see.

I find it hard to believe it the parameters were off so far that it completely tanked in an 18hr period but still much to learn.

I’m also going to look into the ammonia/coral interactions as that’s totally new to me and hasn’t been an issue in the past.

If your DT is only 2 ppm and your frag tank is 5 ppm, this indicates there was some amount of ammonia appearing in your frag tank. Your frag tank was probably higher in nitrate than 5 ppm because you diluted it with 2 ppm tank water.

Your ammonia is zero now but that might be because your bacteria spent the last 5 days catching up. During the time frame that the bacteria was catching up though, your corals were exposed to a low level of ammonia causing an overall sad looking tank. I've done my own experiment where i put frags in a system with ~0.25 ppm ammonia and in 1-2 days, they were pretty sad looking.

Doesn't always happen but if your live rock doesn't have that much bacteria and you purchase and dip a lot of corals, you can overwhelm your bacteria pretty quickly. Folks tend to forget that the bacteria we work so hard to grow, takes a long time to divide.

 

[Beau_B]

Sorry, that was confusing. I posted 5 NO3 as the presumed DT level as it’s been that for a long time, but now with the reduced fish load and feeding it obviously has dropped... to 2ppm today.

I hadn’t tested the QT tank as it was new water and wasn’t on my radar to be worried about in the first week.

I have now just tested it, and it’s only faintly detectable. Under 2, probably real close to 0 which would make me think it was indeed 0 before WC. I’m aware that 0 isn’t good long term, but can it cause sudden death?! Can’t be. I had dinos in a previous tank that was 0ppm and none of the corals died.

 

[Beau_B]

I guess what I have to imagine is that I got a foreign contaminate in the tank on Friday when moving things.

The WC and carbon 24hrs later have turned it around and the toadstool is just a red herring since the collective doesn’t think chemical warfare is likely.

Too soon to say if the hammer will make it but looks like others are recovering.