Is my hammer coral okay?

[jrhodes777]

I have a 30 gallon biocube (1.5 years old) and I added a Hammer coral a week ago. It looked fine until this morning when one of the heads was either retracting or completely shriveled (I don't see any polyps). I did a 30% water water change two days ago. My parameters are
ph - 8
ammonia - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 2
temp - 77
salinity - 1.025
Mg - 1350
ca - 460
alkalinity - 11.2
Any help or advice is appreciated! (I realise my ca and alkalinity are a tad bit high) also just ordered a phosphate checker.

 

[mwoodard14]

I have a 30 gallon biocube (1.5 years old) and I added a Hammer coral a week ago. It looked fine until this morning when one of the heads was either retracting or completely shriveled (I don't see any polyps). I did a 30% water water change two days ago. My parameters are
ph - 8
ammonia - 0
nitrite - 0
nitrate - 2
temp - 77
salinity - 1.025
Mg - 1350
ca - 460
alkalinity - 11.2
Any help or advice is appreciated! (I realise my ca and alkalinity are a tad bit high) also just ordered a phosphate checker.

Keep an eye on it
Maybe do another water change to get your cal & alk down a bit.

 

[Rose's_Reef]

Hows the water flow? Hammer coral can sometimes close up of the water flow is to strong.

 

[jrhodes777]

Hows the water flow? Hammer coral can sometimes close up of the water flow is to strong.

It is on the sandbed with low flow and low light.

 

[Sam816]

Do you Target feed it? Any reef safe with caution fish in your tank? Or sand sifting fish that can drop sand on it?

 

[jrhodes777]

Do you Target feed it? Any reef safe with caution fish in your tank? Or sand sifting fish that can drop sand on it?

Target feed every other day with a combo of phytos and reef roids. I have two clowns and a cardinalfish so I wouldn't imagine they would be the problem. The clowns don't bother it.

 

[REEFTIDE]

Drop your alk if possible

 

[Sam816]

Target feed every other day with a combo of phytos and reef roids. I have two clowns and a cardinalfish so I wouldn't imagine they would be the problem. The clowns don't bother it.

as others recommended, bring your alk down and move the hammer to higher flow area. if you are feeding every other day it needs to get rid of mucus/waste. do you see strings flying out of it?

 

[jrhodes777]

as others recommended, bring your alk down and move the hammer to higher flow area. if you are feeding every other day it needs to get rid of mucus/waste. do you see strings flying out of it?

I have not seen any mucus or waste but also do not watch it all day. Would this be a major concern?

 

[Sam816]

I have not seen any mucus or waste but also do not watch it all day. Would this be a major concern?

this is my observation with my torches n hammers. if they don't like direct feeding they spit out everything in the form of mucus net with food almost immediately . If they do like it then they wait 10-15 mins before slowly releasing mucus over time.
excess mucus can irritate them hence polyps shrink. if food is there then it can lead to infections.
if it doesn't open in another few hours then take it out and dip in coral dip. if u can put him slightly higher than sand bed level (glue it to a small rock and put the rock in sand then that might help too.

 

[theocorals537]

I have not seen any mucus or waste but also do not watch it all day. Would this be a major concern?

when i feed my torches , duncans , frogs and hammers they always close up for a few hours or few days for the duncans. they need to absorb and expel the nutritents, its weird but they **** out of their mouth

 

[Dkmoo]

Drop alk but keep eye on pH. Stonies do a lot better in the higher spectrum of the typical 7.7 - 8.3 ph range due to its effect on calcification. Remember ph scale is exponential. 8.3 to 7.7 is actually 60% decrease in carbonate concentration - the primary component of calcification with CA

11 dkH should result in pH higher than 8.5 so the fact its 8 suggest you have high CO2. Bringing alk down to the safer 8 to 9 range with the same CO2 concentration will give you pH lower in the 7.7 7.8 range, which will not be good for the long term health of LPS

 

[PghReef]

this is my observation with my torches n hammers. if they don't like direct feeding they spit out everything in the form of mucus net with food almost immediately . If they do like it then they wait 10-15 mins before slowly releasing mucus over time.
excess mucus can irritate them hence polyps shrink. if food is there then it can lead to infections.
if it doesn't open in another few hours then take it out and dip in coral dip. if u can put him slightly higher than sand bed level (glue it to a small rock and put the rock in sand then that might help too.

If you do use an antiseptic dip, not a pest removal do like buyers or revive. They'll just stress it more unless the issue is a pest irritating the polyp. If you see tissue dying then you need something like an iodine based dip.