Losing hammers head by head

[Christoporia]

I have lost about 10 heads over the last 2 weeks and it is very frustrating. It seems the tissue just begins to release from the skeleton and flow in the water. I cut the heads off before it can break off and destroy other corals. No signs of brown jelly disease, no large swings, tank is year and half old. Any suggestions or help would be appreciated.

Params:
Kh-8
Cal-420
Salinity-1.024
Mag-1350
Nitrates->10
nitrites-0
Ammonia-0
Phos-0 on test (some algae)
Ph-8.2

 

[Zack K]

It sounds like you have a case of Polyp Bailout. I am somewhat unfamiliar with this "disease" as it is fairly new to me, but I have seen it caused by,
A: Lack of Nutrients. And euphyillia will ditch its polyps as a last ditch effort to seed and grow in a new environment. This prevents the extinction of the entire colony.
B: Too much flow. If the euphyillia (your hammer) is getting a lot of direct flow or even strong indirect flow it can almost "rip" the heads right of the skeleton.

In case you didn't know euphyillia like a bit lore of a "dirtier"water. They prefer IME Nitrates 5ppm-25ppm and Phosphates.2ppm-.5ppm

As stated above, PB is somewhat new to me so I have a lot of reading to do. Let's see if the fellows over at the #reefsquad can give you a bit more advice.

 

[Sabellafella]

I have lost about 10 heads over the last 2 weeks and it is very frustrating. It seems the tissue just begins to release from the skeleton and flow in the water. I cut the heads off before it can break off and destroy other corals. No signs of brown jelly disease, no large swings, tank is year and half old. Any suggestions or help would be appreciated.

Params:
Kh-8
Cal-420
Salinity-1.024
Mag-1350
Nitrates->10
nitrites-0
Ammonia-0
Phos-0 on test (some algae)
Ph-8.2

Ouch, how long have you had them? If theres no brown jelly, can almost rule out bad water quality. Could be flow, or phosphate. Ive had polyp bail out on some aussi hammer colonys that i had for a very long time do to using two much gfo. Also have seen them bailout under high/low mag problems.

 

[Christoporia]

Ouch, how long have you had them? If theres no brown jelly, can almost rule out bad water quality. Could be flow, or phosphate. Ive had polyp bail out on some aussi hammer colonys that i had for a very long time do to using two much gfo. Also have seen them bailout under high/low mag problems.

I am using gfo for sure. I have had most of them for about a year with no issues until now.

 

[Christoporia]

It sounds like you have a case of Polyp Bailout. I am somewhat unfamiliar with this "disease" as it is fairly new to me, but I have seen it caused by,
A: Lack of Nutrients. And euphyillia will ditch its polyps as a last ditch effort to seed and grow in a new environment. This prevents the extinction of the entire colony.
B: Too much flow. If the euphyillia (your hammer) is getting a lot of direct flow or even strong indirect flow it can almost "rip" the heads right of the skeleton.

In case you didn't know euphyillia like a bit lore of a "dirtier"water. They prefer IME Nitrates 5ppm-25ppm and Phosphates.2ppm-.5ppm

As stated above, PB is somewhat new to me so I have a lot of reading to do. Let's see if the fellows over at the #reefsquad can give you a bit more advice.

No changes to location of the heads nor the flow, so I doubt that is the issue at hand. I wonder if they are just trying to bail and propagate somewhere else?

 

[Zack K]

No changes to location of the heads nor the flow, so I doubt that is the issue at hand. I wonder if they are just trying to bail and propagate somewhere else?

Woke up this morning and another source of PB is irritating little creatures (pests). Now this is just 1 case that I saw a while back but it is a possibility. Looking at the pictures though. It looks to be a nutritional issue IMO. I would raise nitrate and phosphate. I wouldn't be worried about high nutrients effecting this guy if raised slowly. He was grown from a 1 head frag to this in 3yrs in a tank with 160ppm Nitrates and 3ppm phosphate. Their is a beautiful Frogspawn next to it to.

 

[Griff]

I have/ had a strain of gha that irritated them where they polyp attaches to the skeleton. I used vibrant and that knocked out the GHA. I used a toothbrush to carefully clean the skeleton of GHA and they slowly started to get better. Still not perfect after a few months but definitely doing better.

 

[Christoporia]

Woke up this morning and another source of PB is irritating little creatures (pests). Now this is just 1 case that I saw a while back but it is a possibility. Looking at the pictures though. It looks to be a nutritional issue IMO. I would raise nitrate and phosphate.

I used some roids this am before lights came on. Lets see if that raises some trates today

 

[Bruce Burnett]

I am using gfo for sure. I have had most of them for about a year with no issues until now.

Stop the GFO don't go back to it unless your phosphates get too high and then only use half of recommended. I think that was my problem with my hammer, bail out and nothing left, even without GFO still zero on hanna after 4 months, but a frogspawn next to it is still doing fine actually doing better without the GFO and all coral colors are better.

 

[BluewaterLa]

Nutrient levels too low or flow too high would be the first things to consider in my opinion from experience.

Corals and especially Lps can take a long time to slowly starve to death from lack of dissolved organics in the water column.
You could start supplementing some amino acids on a regular basis, this will help give nutrition to all corals as they absorb it through their tissues.

A low range nitrate test kit is good to have on hand so you get accurate reading to be able to adjust your feeding and or supplementation of foods better to suite your corals needs.
Every time I have torches, frogspawns tissue shrink on the base it's a low nutrient issue. This goes for loosing individual heads here and there.
Candy canes that look like they are receding tissue that's on the base is a good indicator for first signs of starvation and soon to follow would be head tissue shrinking.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

I've been going through the same issue myself over the last few months. Waiting for triton test results now. So far I have ruled out flow, nutrients, PAR, pests, started dosing aminos and alk, ca & mag are all good and stable. Lost probably 2 dozen or more torch heads and over a dozen hammer heads, as well as half a dozen other LPS colonies. Down to soft corals and 1 hammer colony (which has now had half its heads bail after being in the tank for 2 months). Mushrooms and leathers are fine but zoas are starting to suffer from whatever it is.
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/lps-issue-driving-me-nuts.297149/

 

[Mal11224]

Ouch, how long have you had them? If theres no brown jelly, can almost rule out bad water quality. Could be flow, or phosphate. Ive had polyp bail out on some aussi hammer colonys that i had for a very long time do to using two much gfo. Also have seen them bailout under high/low mag problems.

Good point Sabellafella. In my experience, whenever I even think that the polyps on my euphyllia corals shrink over several days, I stop the gfo from flowing. This usually works if you do it in time. Too much gfo will affect them. Nowadays, if I run gfo, I use 1/3 of the recommended amount. My phosphates are usually 0.00 with my Hanna checker anyway. I may not need it at all.

 

[Sabellafella]

Good point Sabellafella. In my experience, whenever I even think that the polyps on my euphyllia corals shrink over several days, I stop the gfo from flowing. This usually works if you do it in time. Too much gfo will affect them. Nowadays, if I run gfo, I use 1/3 of the recommended amount. My phosphates are usually 0.00 with my Hanna checker anyway. I may not need it at all.

I feel like they suffer the worst from being heavy with gfo, even stuff like duncans-fleshy polyped lps. They just seem to not like it at all.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

I feel like they suffer the worst from being heavy with gfo, even stuff like duncans-fleshy polyped lps. They just seem to not like it at all.

Do you think this could be caused by aluminium PO4 remover too? I use less than half the recommended amount though and don't replace it very often at all. PO4 measures at 0.5ppm, waiting for triton test results to see if aluminium is too high, but I have read that high al really only effects leathers.

How long after turning GFO off would they take to bounce back?

 

[Sabellafella]

Do you think this could be caused by aluminium PO4 remover too? I use less than half the recommended amount though and don't replace it very often at all. PO4 measures at 0.5ppm, waiting for triton test results to see if aluminium is too high, but I have read that high al really only effects leathers.

How long after turning GFO off would they take to bounce back?

Certainly could at some point but may be very unlikely. Going to Try to narrow it down, your loosing heads one by one. Are all the heads closed up or look annoyed? Might be something picking them off, they maybe couldve gotten damaged, so the heads are just withering away. You can try dipping it if you could, or even frag off the empty skeleton. I feel like if it were real water issues youd atleast see one or more affected colonys all closed up while this is happening.

 

[MaccaPopEye]

Certainly could at some point but may be very unlikely. Going to Try to narrow it down, your loosing heads one by one. Are all the heads closed up or look annoyed? Might be something picking them off, they maybe couldve gotten damaged, so the heads are just withering away. You can try dipping it if you could, or even frag off the empty skeleton. I feel like if it were real water issues youd atleast see one or more affected colonys all closed up while this is happening.

Yeah it was between 1-3 heads at a time, sometimes the same colony and sometimes separate colonies. Never lots of heads at the same time though.

With torches and hammers most heads closed up before bailing, but some just peeled off while looking healthy. The flesh of my trachy, chalice and one favia just peeled off, the other favias all receded until there was none left. Zoas have just very slowly over time disappeared, the large mats have just thinned out. Mushrooms, leathers, BTA and clams are still looking healthy and growing/spreading.

Only thing I have that could be picking them off is 2 coral banded shrimp and they were added after the issues started. Otherwise I have all reef safe fish, turbos and trochus, none of which I have seen bother the coral.

Coral also wasn't damaged, all very healthy and usually in the tank at least 1 month while looking great before they start to deteriorate, the first colonies all came from my old tank (running almost 2 years with the coral growing) others since have come from a few tank shut downs where they had all been happy and growing for at least months if not years, all drip acclimated well. Even if I added a new colony to the tank while other colonies were looking bad, the new addition would look fine for at least 1 month before turning bad.

I thought the same about water quality (would irritate all colonies at once) but ordered the triton test to be sure. I have considered dipping quite a few times but everyone on the Aus facebook pages were all quite sure that it wouldn't help, but I have been meaning to give the last colony I have left a dip in betadine or melafix as they are the only dips I have access to. I also tried fragging off the damaged heads on one of the early colonies and it didn't stop.

Sorry to hijack Christoporia, hopefully it might suggest something to help your issue too.

 

[Christoporia]

Update.... I have lost 1 more head from my golden hammer. I cut that head off asap and the rest seam to be okay on that one. I was removing some yellow polyps and pretty sure I damaged a head on my frogspawn, it bailed 2 days later. Cut it off, dipped in iodine and the next day, the sister head did the same. I cut it off and saved the last 2 heads of frogspawn. I will remove the gfo asap tomorrow. As MaccaPopEye said, the torches would completely draw in before bailout, the hammers would shrivel up and detatch from the skeleton but still look healthy.