Hammer coral help

Colin Gilboy · Jul 20, 2018

I just bought a Hammer coral two days ago and was beautiful in the store, took it home placed it in my tank and now it hasn’t opened up, I tried giving it coral frenzy and nothing! Any help?! Lighting? Even gave it a water change and all levels are where I need them to bed!!!

MZurlo · Jul 20, 2018

What are your water parameters? How long has your tank been up an running? What lighting are you using?, and what’s the par level? Where do you get you tank water from? Is it RO/DI water? And how much flow is on it? Sorry for all the questions but we need to know about your tank to help you.

Colin Gilboy · Jul 20, 2018

MZurlo said:
What are your water parameters? How long has your tank been up an running? What lighting are you using?, and what’s the par level? Where do you get you tank water from? Is it RO/DI water? And how much flow is on it? Sorry for all the questions but we need to know about your tank to help you.

My tank has been up for two months, I have been doing water changes and when I first put water in the tank I am using nutriSea water. For my lighting I’m running two 10 watts lights (blue & white), I have one hydor wave an circulation pump, flow rate of 240GPH. My salinity level is at 1.023-1.024. And along with all my levels seem they are right where they need to be.

Billldg · Jul 20, 2018

From the picture it doesn't look like its drawn back into its skeleton so that's good, personally I have found that sometimes it takes a little while for them to start to fully come out, my hammer doesn't like alot of white light, maybe u can move it off to one side and not directly under light, also, imo your salinity is a little low, don't know if this is an issue as up until recently I have been running mine low due to not calibrating my refractometer, was running minne at 1.023, I have since raised it to 1.026, the hammer took a while to come out and that may also have caused it, good luck

RocketBunny · Jul 20, 2018

Lighting. Your lighting is very weak. I would say you invest into some Coralife LEDS. I use Coralife Marine Clip-on LEDs and my softies along with hammer and frogspawn are happy. They also like moderate to high flow. I would suggest you place it in a moderate flow area on top of the rock, closer to light...

Also, get your nitrites down to 0. Use Seachem De-Nitrate... that will help out a lot.

Reply if you need further help! Thanks