Hammer emergency ... Maybe?

ReefTantrum · Jul 25, 2013

I have a beautiful painted/bicolor hammer with about 8 fully developed heads and 2 immature heads. Yesterday I started noticing some clear/brown discharge/slime. I went to work last night with this stuff on the baby heads only... Got home this morning and it was all over 6 heads. I wish that I had the presence of mind to take a photo, but I went into complete panic mode. I immediately took it out and rinsed in fresh water to remove the slime. Then I netted and scooped out what I could see floating around the rest of the tank. Should I be panicked? I'm pretty sure I should be. And what about my other corals? This is in my 33g frag tank. Yikes! So there is a little of everything in there: blasts, trumpets, birdsnests, mushrooms, frogspawn, etc.

Here is how he hammer looked over the weekend:

How it was day before yesterday:

And how it looks right this moment:

LoveTheReef · Jul 25, 2013

Ouch ... you can try dipping in Lugols ... if it's any type of infection, that should help with it.

Martyd · Jul 25, 2013

You may want to try fragging the head that is still alive. The rest of it looks dead and/or dying to me.

Gladfelter · Jul 25, 2013

Martyd said:
You may want to try fragging the head that is still alive. The rest of it looks dead and/or dying to me.

+1 I would at least try to move that head away so you font lose it all. Try a iodine dip or some other dip to kill infection

ReefTantrum · Jul 25, 2013

Ive read about brown jelly, and it sounds like my culprit. But the photos I'm seeing don't look like it. I guess treating it won't hurt.

Here's how it looks now. You can see the brownish buildup on the left. It's really more translucent that it appears here.

eliramos · Jul 25, 2013

save the head while you can and check on any other corals to make sure they dont catch it!

Verduzco · Jul 25, 2013

yeah, more than likely brown jelly. frag the pieces off and try to save the healthy ones.

Genesis Corals · Jul 25, 2013

+1 defeating brown jelly is notoriously hard to do, frag what you can and hope for the best.

buddythelion · Jul 25, 2013

Genesis Corals said:
+1 defeating brown jelly is notoriously hard to do, frag what you can and hope for the best.

+1. Brown jelly is no no jelly.

ReefTantrum · Jul 26, 2013

Ok so just a little update. I took the hammer out of the frag tank, bagged it and floated it in a 45g we have setup in our bedroom. That tank is a new tank that just finished its first cycle, so it has nothing in it but some hermits and a chromis for now. When my husband got home from work, he split all the heads and placed them in one more fresh water dip. Here's how they look now:

Hopefully, we have salvaged some of it. It'll stay in that tank until it recovers. Since its the only coral in there, it should be ok for now. As for the frag tank, I siphoned and used a tooth brush to remove what slime I could find in the tank. We also added an additional powerhead to the frag tank to try to prevent anything else from settling on the other corals.

Thanks again for the input and help today. We'll see how it goes.

eliramos · Sep 13, 2013

update?

ladyreefer1983 · Sep 13, 2013

sorry but looks to be goner..what u can do is dip it and suck out as much slime as u can on the heads or just frag and toss the dead ones..clean the ones that still have flesh then rinse rinse...i had this happened to my frogspawn and hammer too but caught it right away and only lost a few heads...if u dont clean it,it will affect other lps...had to always siphon mine everytime i see slime and dipped them every other day...

looking at the picture..i can only see 2 heads that might make it if it gets treated right away...sorry