Hammer Not Happy

[Res_Ipsa]

For the past week, one side of my hammer coral hasn't been fully extending and I'm not sure why. I haven't changed flow to that side although I did bump up my lights 5% last week.

Water parameters have been pretty good the last few weeks and I do weekly 10-15 gallon water changes in this 60g system. Parameters before my water change on Saturday were:

Alk: 8.4 dKH
pH: 8.2
N03: 10ppm
PO4: 0.09

I have been running Rowaphos for the past few weeks to bring my phosphates down and Purigen to keep nitrates under control. There's a couple of spaghetti worms near this hammer but not sure if they would be irritating it this much.

 

[GoVols]

It might be from bringing down your phos. and nitrates, but... wall hammers can be a lot harder... than branching hammers.

It looks like tissues is dying inside that one wall and it could pick up steam.

@DSC reef
Not seeing any Brown Jelly.

For me an 5 min. RO/DI dip at display temp. would be a last resort.

Would you treat with Iodine? If so what's the procedure?

 

[MnFish1]

It looks like tissues is dying inside that one wall and it could pick up steam.

This - I would attempt cutting this part off. I wasn't aware you can do (or should do) a freshwater dip on coral?

 

[GoVols]

This - I would attempt cutting this part off. I wasn't aware you can do (or should do) a freshwater dip on coral?

Never tried cutting a wall hammer, but an RO/DI dip helped me one time, with a wall just like that one.
It was a last ditch effort.

Wall's are real hard to pull out of trouble like the above.

Gotta have some good luck to pull it off.

 

[DSC reef]

Looks like typical recession from wall hammers. They can be notoriously more difficult to keep than branching hammers (euphyllia paraancora). I would suggest an iodine based dip but in my experience once the recession starts it continues. I've seen success stories so I hope it pulls through

 

[Res_Ipsa]

Quick update:

I put a rubber band around the bad tissue and it appeared to stop the progression. I also did an iodine dip. The following day I began adding brightwell Coral Aminos as well as saturated Kalkwasser to my ATO as my alk had dropped to 7.3 dKH.

The hammer is hanging on and fighting the good fight!

 

[Res_Ipsa]

A few hammer shots

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

A few hammer shots

How did the hammer do? Any update on it?

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

Is that a torch coral in the background of the first shot if so how far away is or was it?

 

[Res_Ipsa]

@Nicholas Dushynsky - I have been dosing full strength Kalkwasser to get my alk, ca, and pH up to try and help my corals out. Currently at about 7.8, 450, and 8.4-8.6 on all three.

I also rented a par meter and found my lights were set too low. I just started a one month ramp up from 45% to 75% overall intensity.

I’m seeing lots of coralline algae growth as well as other stony corals like montis and millepora growing better as well as a Duncan and acan growing new heads, so that's a positive side.

I’ve been dosing amino acids every day as well to try and help the corals survive. The hammer is hanging on and hasn’t really had too much more tissue die off, but it certainly isn’t out of the woods yet.

 

[Nicholas Dushynsky]

@Nicholas Dushynsky - I have been dosing full strength Kalkwasser to get my alk, ca, and pH up to try and help my corals out. Currently at about 7.8, 450, and 8.4-8.6 on all three.

I also rented a par meter and found my lights were set too low. I just started a one month ramp up from 45% to 75% overall intensity.

I’m seeing lots of coralline algae growth as well as other stony corals like montis and millepora growing better as well as a Duncan and acan growing new heads, so that's a positive side.

I’ve been dosing amino acids every day as well to try and help the corals survive. The hammer is hanging on and hasn’t really had too much more tissue die off, but it certainly isn’t out of the woods yet.

That's a positive sign keep us up to date with it. What light are you using out of interest?

 

[Res_Ipsa]

Lights are a pair of radion XR15 G4’s with diffusers running the AB+ spectrum.

 

[Royce024]

I see sand inside the skeleton structure where the flesh should be (top view picture). Did you try removing the sand?

 

[Res_Ipsa]

I see sand inside the skeleton structure where the flesh should be (top view picture). Did you try removing the sand?

I did use a small tube which I use for target feeding to try and blow the sand out. It also blew out some polyps with the sand so I haven’t done anymore lately.

 

[ScottR]

Typically I wouldn’t put hammers or other euphyllia on the sand bed.

 

[Brian1f1]

Typically I wouldn’t put hammers or other euphyllia on the sand bed.

A lot of people do, especially torches. I’ve had no issues related to that.

 

[Res_Ipsa]

Last night I ended the 5 weeks of trying to save this hammer and pulled it from the tank.

As you can see from the pic, the tissue recession continued and it was doing so poorly I was concerned about it affecting other corals in the tank.

I've been working to try and keep my chemistry stable but have run into some issues dealing with high pH and possible precipitation from the kalk in my ATO and the small manual dosing I've been doing to keep things in balance. I've reduced my dosing to just 5ml of ESV 2 part as needed and will buy a DOS shortly to see if that helps.

 

[ScottR]

Sad to hear that. And it still had some hammers sticking out trying to hang on. Your alk is up and down but usually euphyllia can deal with that. Maybe it just wasn’t a happy camper.