Hammer Trouble.

[Arley]

So 2 months ago after my tank was set up for 4 months it was time for coral and I decided I wanted a hammer. So I bought it, brought it home, temp acclimated for 10 minutes then acclimated with 1/2 up every 10 minutes for 40-50 mins. But when it came time to put the coral in my display I could see the skeleton I thought nothing of it, I just thought the coral was mad and would take a day or two to open up. But an hour or two later it was really receded and white slime was coming out of its head and not long after all of the head turned to a brown goo and it was dead. I assumed it was an issue with my acclimation being too swift or stressful, so a month later I purchased a drip acclimation kit and tried again. First temp acclimating for 10 mins, then dripping for 1.5 hours till salinity was within 0.002. But that coral suffered the same fate. Seeing the skeleton then the white slime and brown goo and dying. I tried one more time today with the same method as the time previously (drip acclimation) and it seems to be going the way the last two did.

Any Ideas?

Parameters:
Salinity: 1.025-1.026
Temp: 74-76
Nitrate: 1-3ppm
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Phosphate: Near zero if not zero

Always placed in low flow and light.

 

[jasonvan]

i had a hammer do well and then suddenly one of the heads started to get smaller and smaller. was too lazy to deal with it until it died and i only had 1 golden hammer left. ended up redipping it, knocked off these purple feeders and its growing like crazy again

 

[Morpheosz]

So 2 months ago after my tank was set up for 4 months it was time for coral and I decided I wanted a hammer. So I bought it, brought it home, temp acclimated for 10 minutes then acclimated with 1/2 up every 10 minutes for 40-50 mins. But when it came time to put the coral in my display I could see the skeleton I thought nothing of it, I just thought the coral was mad and would take a day or two to open up. But an hour or two later it was really receded and white slime was coming out of its head and not long after all of the head turned to a brown goo and it was dead. I assumed it was an issue with my acclimation being too swift or stressful, so a month later I purchased a drip acclimation kit and tried again. First temp acclimating for 10 mins, then dripping for 1.5 hours till salinity was within 0.002. But that coral suffered the same fate. Seeing the skeleton then the white slime and brown goo and dying. I tried one more time today with the same method as the time previously (drip acclimation) and it seems to be going the way the last two did.

Any Ideas?

Parameters:
Salinity: 1.025-1.026
Temp: 74-76
Nitrate: 1-3ppm
Ammonia: 0ppm
Nitrite: 0ppm
Phosphate: Near zero if not zero

Always placed in low flow and light.

If these are the first corals you are adding, my hypothesis is your water may not be suitable for corals in general at this point. There are a lot of things fish can live with in the water that corals cannot (e.g. copper). Could be some metal in your water or something like that.

Odds are astronomically low that you got 3 coral frags that were on death's door and didn't notice anything weird at the store. As others have mentioned, frags don't generally just up and die as they are added to a tank, no matter how ill fitting the environment might be for them and definitely not that sensitive to acclimation techniques. Corals that don't work in your tank usually fail to thrive for a number of days to weeks before dying.

My money is on something in the water, and often times that comes from the source, hence my question about what your source water is. What is the source of your water for mixing salt and top off? Is it RO? If not, you definitely want to switch up your source. If it is RO, I might suggest an ICP test to see if anything is making it through the filter.

 

[Arley]

Interesting, maybe it's not the type of coral or method. Perhaps try something more straight forward like some zoas or other softies? Euphyllia are intermediate corals at best (see my current ongoing euphyllia saga thread), maybe trying something more straight forward to ensure you don't have something fundamentally toxic to corals in the water.

What is your water source BTW?

0 TDS Rodi is the source water.