Hammer coral dying or splitting?

[SandNRocks]

Hi everyone,
Had this hammer for ~5 months. The last two weeks its been sorta closed up and slowly looks like its getting worse. Its been shedding a few tentacles and the flesh has been slowly receding. Its right at the point where the flesh would separate for the split, but im not sure if it should look this bad.
Params:
Alk 8
Mag 1280
Phosphates highish at .07 last week
Nitrates 0

Having an issue with my nitrates right now for sure. Everything else is doing well. Birdsnest and one monticap have lost some color over the last two weeks which im guessing is due to low nitrates. No matter how much stuff i add, i cant get them up, so i ordered some liquid nitrates to be here this week to get them back in line. Anyways, my questions are pretty much:
Is it just splitting and im paranoid?
Would low nitrates cause this?
Could it potentially be something bacterial, and if so should I pull it and do an iodine dip?
Also its in an area with pretty low flow. Could that potentially be a contributing factor?
Sorry for the longwinded post. Thanks everyone!

Blue line on the hammer shows where the flesh was 2 weeks ago.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Low nitrates could be a problem since corals need a nitrogen source but I'd also look at (slowly) raising your magnesium to 1400+.

 

[slingfox]

Agreed with @EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal to raise magnesium to 1400+. Softies apparently love higher magnesium. Cheapest way to do it is buying the powder from BRS but most convenient way is buying a liquid magnesium additive. Fair warning: it takes a lot of the liquid magnesium to raise the level higher.

 

[SandNRocks]

Thanks for the suggestions. Ive been looking into low mag and that was my original concern, especially with some of my sps losing color, but when i checked yesterday and got 1280, my concern switched to nitrates. unfortunately i probably wont raise mag right now because: Its a pico reef, i do 50-100% wc every week and mag has stayed constant at this level and into the low 1300s since day one. Unless i change salt, it doesnt make sense to dose tons on mg to only take it out with a wc every week. Theoretically i could dose mag right into my fresh water, but everythings been growing and doing well for the last 8months, so im not thinking its the mag even if its a little on the low side.

Salt is blue bucket which mixes to 1310 i believe so 1280s pretty much good in my opinion.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Agreed with @EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal to raise magnesium to 1400+. Softies apparently love higher magnesium. Cheapest way to do it is buying the powder from BRS but most convenient way is buying a liquid magnesium additive. Fair warning: it takes a lot of the liquid magnesium to raise the level higher.

LPS, and euphyllia/Fimbriaphyllia in particular prefer higher mag.
I don't know if soft corals do.

 

[SandNRocks]

It was the low nitrates, stopped receding as soon as i started dosing. seems to be coming back, regrowing tentacles, and regaining color just fine. Other hammers that werent having issues also appear much fatter and happier as well