Hammer coral bleaching?

[Brandon42]

Iv had my hammer coral for about 2 months maybe a little longer. It's been thriving as far as I could tell until now. A couple days ago I noticed that one of the heads seemed to be shrinking and the whole thing hasn't been opening to as much as it usually did during the day. The color on the rest of it is all normal and nothing else in the tank other than some coraline algae seems to be having any issues all parameters are stable.
0 - nitrate
9dkh - alk
420ppm - cal
8.2-8.4 - ph
0 - ammonia

Lighting is 6 T5 3x blue 3x white and 8 moonlight led's. They get 9 hours of blue and 8 hours of both. And about 4 with only the moonlights on.

The only changes iv made/added in the last 3 weeks is adding 3x peppermint shrimp, 1x ricorida, 1x digitata, and in the past 2 weeks have starting using pickling lime to dose calcium through a dripper. I do have a bit of a hair algae issue going on but it is only on the sand bed and doesn't bother the hammer at all. I also remove the algae regularly. My last water change was Monday but I will admit it had been about a month sense the last one but the last one was almost half the water and all parameters have been stable.

I also noticed these purple things in the rock while taking photos for this post.

This photo is from about 2 weeks ago. There is a filter on it I just wanted to show the fullness prior. Thank you.

 

[Tahoe61]

There is a Vermetid worm just below the Hammer, the Vermetids casting strings could be irritating the coral.
That is not green hair algae, it's a bad case of Cyanobacteria. You need to figure out why the Cyano is so bad at this point. Is flow adequate, are nitrate and phosphate levels too high? What is your water source?
Have you seen any of the shrimp picking at the coral?

 

[twilliard]

A water quality/chemistry issue.
Grab some of that stringy "stuff" and put in a cup of water. Add .1ml of peroxide and let me know what it does 24 hours from now.

 

[Brandon42]

There is a Vermetid worm just below the Hammer, the Vermetids casting strings could be irritating the coral.
That is not green hair algae, it's a bad case of Cyanobacteria. You need to figure out why the Cyano is so bad at this point. Is flow adequate, are nitrate and phosphate levels too high? What is your water source?
Have you seen any of the shrimp picking at the coral?

are these worms the purple looking things on the rock? my water source is a BRS RO/DI and my tds meter still says 0 when using it. sometimes it will hit 1ppm but usually 0. i do not have a po4 test but can take some water up to the lfs and find out. my nitrate is reading 0 and i use a red sea test kit. iv had this checked at the lfs in the last 3 weeks and they got the same reading. i havent seen the shrimp pick at the coral but i have seen my emerald crab pick at it. but he really only goes for the glue (i thought he was a addict).

A water quality/chemistry issue.
Grab some of that stringy "stuff" and put in a cup of water. Add .1ml of peroxide and let me know what it does 24 hours from now.

ill do that and let you know. this stuff is persistent. i will vac the sand bed and it will go away for a day and then come right back the following. it is mostly concentrated in the sand bed. and when it first broke out i was dosing peroxide directly into the tank and it was keeping it at bay but i have stopped that because i didnt want to spike my alk when i started using pickling lime.

 

[Tahoe61]

Yes the purple tube is a Vermetid.

How old is your tank? What rock type is that?

I see a power head directed toward the surface, can you add a power head directing the flow to the sand bed to create a circular flow pattern.

 

[Brandon42]

Yes the purple tube is a Vermetid.

How old is your tank? What rock type is that?

I see a power head directed toward the surface, can you add a power head directing the flow to the sand bed to create a circular flow pattern.

my tank is 4 months old. so can i just pluck them out of there? i have another power head on the upper half of the other side of the tank pointed down just enough not to blow sand everywhere, i can try and move it lower. also i started with dry pukani rock. i made the mistake of not curing the rock but have byond payed for that already. ended up having to change out 90 gallons of water over 3 days to get the po4 levels back down. iv been running phosgard ever sense and the lfs said my po4 was 0.04ppm a couple weeks ago. it really does only stay to the sand bed for the most part i think my uv sterilizer kills anything in the water column.

 

[Tahoe61]

So you are aware that Pukini is known for leeching phosphates I assume.

Your tank is young, this could run it's course or you could still cure the rock using the Lanthanum Chloride method.

Rock and hard place (no pun intended).

But try to adjust the flow regardless to see if that is of assist.

Good luck I know the frustration.

 

[Brandon42]

A water quality/chemistry issue.
Grab some of that stringy "stuff" and put in a cup of water. Add .1ml of peroxide and let me know what it does 24 hours from now.

I know it hasn't been 24 hours but this is what it already looks like.

And that water was not pink before hand.

 

[Brandon42]

So you are aware that Pukini is known for leeching phosphates I assume.

Your tank is young, this could run it's course or you could still cure the rock using the Lanthanum Chloride method.

Rock and hard place (no pun intended).

But try to adjust the flow regardless to see if that is of assist.

Good luck I know the frustration.

how far can these Vermetid worms web come out? i see 2 of them all within a couple inches of the damage to my hammer. and the way the rock was the flow would have been pushing these webs right towards the damaged area.

 

[twilliard]

Cyanobacteria
And yes with cyanobacteria the water will turn pink as it breaks the cells down.
I suggest a good read in my cyanobacteria thread.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/back-at-it-peroxide-vrs-cyanobacteria.241002/

 

[twilliard]

how far can these Vermetid worms web come out? i see 2 of them all within a couple inches of the damage to my hammer. and the way the rock was the flow would have been pushing these webs right towards the damaged area.

Put superglue on the close invaders

 

[Brandon42]

Cyanobacteria
And yes with cyanobacteria the water will turn pink as it breaks the cells down.
I suggest a good read in my cyanobacteria thread.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/back-at-it-peroxide-vrs-cyanobacteria.241002/

i had actually started reading that article in the past and brandon429 is the one that first introduced me to peroxide. when i had a bunch of it show up i removed a lot by hand and started dosing 5ml of peroxide every day in my 125 gallon (150 total water volume) and it was working well but i noticed my alk was rising as i added more peroxide. is this normal? i stopped dosing when i added the pickling lime because i did not want my alk to get too high. but my calcium levels are back up now so i could go back to peroxide dosing again for a little while until the cyano gets under control. i will finish the article you sent me as well. 48 pages is a lot to get through though lol

 

[twilliard]

i had actually started reading that article in the past and brandon429 is the one that first introduced me to peroxide. when i had a bunch of it show up i removed a lot by hand and started dosing 5ml of peroxide every day in my 125 gallon (150 total water volume) and it was working well but i noticed my alk was rising as i added more peroxide. is this normal? i stopped dosing when i added the pickling lime because i did not want my alk to get too high. but my calcium levels are back up now so i could go back to peroxide dosing again for a little while until the cyano gets under control. i will finish the article you sent me as well. 48 pages is a lot to get through though lol

Yes it is a lot of pages. This is why I had to have it locked. It was getting to long for people to read through it all and asking questions that have already been covered.
To my knowledge h2o2 will have no effect on alkalinity levels.
Also 5ml for your volume is not enough to completely eradicate them.
You would need 15ml every 12 hours

 

[Brandon42]

Yes it is a lot of pages. This is why I had to have it locked. It was getting to long for people to read through it all and asking questions that have already been covered.
To my knowledge h2o2 will have no effect on alkalinity levels.
Also 5ml for your volume is not enough to completely eradicate them.
You would need 15ml every 12 hours

Okay I will try this again but with the higher dosage And let you know affects. Can the cyano harm my hammer like this though? Or do you think that is most likely the worm or combination of both. All other corals seem healthy and the cyano mainly stays to the sand bed. But the hammer is probably the lowest in the tank compared to everything else.

 

[twilliard]

I doubt cyanobacteria is doing that.
You might want to raise your hammer off the bed surface as I would suspect a high level of hydrogen sulfide which cyanobacteria can thrive on.

 

[Midrats]

Peppermints love to pick at LPS corals. Do you have an aiptasia problem?

 

[Brandon42]

Peppermints love to pick at LPS corals. Do you have an aiptasia problem?

no aiptasia in the tank but i havent seen them go for it at all. maybe at night.

 

[Midrats]

Nighttime is when they are most active.

 

[Brandon42]

Nighttime is when they are most active.

iv only had the shrimp for about 10 days do you think they could do this much damage that quick?

 

[Brandon42]

A water quality/chemistry issue.
Grab some of that stringy "stuff" and put in a cup of water. Add .1ml of peroxide and let me know what it does 24 hours from now.

This is odd homework lol