Disintigrating hammer skeleton

btmedic04 · Aug 14, 2020

Has anyone ever seen the base of their hammer skeleton begin to disintegrate? My gold hammers skeleton is and I'm not sure whats causing it. I dont see any BJD and its polyps are fully extended during daylight hours. None of my other hammers, frogspawn or torches are exhibiting this issue either. In the meantime I used my fingers to knock off any soft/loose stuff off the base of the skeleton and applied a liberal dollop of superglue to the base and mounted it to my rock work. Thanks for any and all insight!

Parameters
Alk 8.3-8.5
Cal 440
Mag 1400
Nitrate 10-20
Po4 0.01 dosed to 0.8 daily

Tundra Cuttle · Aug 15, 2020

So the actual skeleton is disintegrating? Considering your pH is correct it isn't the water dissolving it. Plus that would cause more issues than that. I think you made the right move, how long has it been in your tank?

btmedic04 · Aug 15, 2020

Tundra Cuttle said:
So the actual skeleton is disintegrating? Considering your pH is correct it isn't the water dissolving it. Plus that would cause more issues than that. I think you made the right move, how long has it been in your tank?

Yeah, the bottom part of the skeleton was dissolving, almost like the media if your ph is a little too low in a calcium reactor. My ph usually runs between 7.9 and 8.1 but ill recalibrate my hanna checker just to make sure. Ive had this particular hammer for about a year and a half now and it's been in this tank since last September.

emjayreloaded · Aug 15, 2020

Following. I have the same with my hammer.

Chayo · Aug 24, 2020

I have the same issue going on, I was blowing the rock work and the base caught a blow and the skeleton started disintegrating. Coral is super healthy and showing growth though... spotted another Euphyllia today with the same issue. Following as well

btmedic04 · Aug 25, 2020

Chayo said:
I have the same issue going on, I was blowing the rock work and the base caught a blow and the skeleton started disintegrating. Coral is super healthy and showing growth though... spotted another Euphyllia today with the same issue. Following as well

Yeah, im not entirely sure what is going on. Ill be ordering an ICP test here soon to see if theres something in the water causing it. Im going to take a look this weekend to see if the disintegration has continued since i glued the base down