My hammer coral help

Sithmaster0 · May 13, 2020

My super healthy hammer colony recently started dropping off two heads from underneath the colony. Is this normal or should I be worried.

Retro Reefer · May 13, 2020

Wall or cone? Picture of whole colony? How long have you had it? Water parameters? Lighting?

Phillthy · May 13, 2020

Ive been keeping hammercoral for a year and ive fragged them.. Watch them split . but never this. Following .. And hoping for the best

Sithmaster0 · May 14, 2020

Retro Reefer said:
Wall or cone? Picture of whole colony? How long have you had it? Water parameters? Lighting?

It's a branched. Had it for about 4 years now. About a year in it died down to a couple of glowing cells but now its all back to being a colony. Mag 1250, Alk is at 5 and calcium is at 420. Its been doing this for the past couple weeks so I'm assuming it will be fine.

Kellie in CA · May 14, 2020

I've only had it happen once, but euphyllia can drop babies this way.

jeffchapok · May 14, 2020

Sorry to hear this. And I don't have any good news for you. My hammers and frogspawn always do this until there's nothing but dead skeletons left. I've tried everything and nothing seems to help. Strangely, my torch is doing great and I've always heard they are the most difficult euphyllia to keep. I wish you better luck!

Retro Reefer · May 14, 2020

Sithmaster0 said:
It's a branched. Had it for about 4 years now. About a year in it died down to a couple of glowing cells but now its all back to being a colony. Mag 1250, Alk is at 5 and calcium is at 420. Its been doing this for the past couple weeks so I'm assuming it will be fine.

Your Alk is low, maybe bring that up to around 8. For what its worth I have Caulastrea's that do that all the time and it has never effected them long term in fact a couple of the dropped pieces started growing new corals. from my observations its always polyps on/under the bottom of colony that do this, I believe its bail out from lack of light.

Sithmaster0 · May 15, 2020

Retro Reefer said:
Your Alk is low, maybe bring that up to around 8. For what its worth I have Caulastrea's that do that all the time and it has never effected them long term in fact a couple of the dropped pieces started growing new corals. from my observations its always polyps on/under the bottom of colony that do this, I believe its bail out from lack of light.

That makes sense, the two polyps dropped and now are new little hammer frags that I have. But in the case of my alk, I literally cannot get it up. I'm dosing around 250 mills of red sea alk solution every 10 days for a 32 biocube but it keeps falling. Is this an issue of the corals growing too quickly or is the alk just precipitating out due to a chemistry problem?

Hemmdog · May 15, 2020

Sithmaster0 said:
That makes sense, the two polyps dropped and now are new little hammer frags that I have. But in the case of my alk, I literally cannot get it up. I'm dosing around 250 mills of red sea alk solution every 10 days for a 32 biocube but it keeps falling. Is this an issue of the corals growing too quickly or is the alk just precipitating out due to a chemistry problem?

Chemistry problem. Your mag is low too. What is your salinity.

PicassoClown04 · May 15, 2020

Just finished up the third volume of The Reef Aquarium’ by Julian Sprung and Charles Delbeck. They mention several times that this behavior is a normal behavior for branching euphyllia species and in the wild is a way for colonies to branch off into different locations without needing to spread all the way there. If I were you, I’d be mounting those babies into frag plugs and making a couple bucks!

David_Carrera · May 15, 2020

Looks like polyp bailout dealt with it once with a torch that didn't survive. Never seen them reproduce like this so I don't think it dropping heads its a good sign. Maybe try fragging off the heads where the polyps are falling out of. Maybe mix an iodine solution to help heal the freshly cut flesh. (just suggestions) good luck though hopefully your hammer survives.

Retro Reefer · May 15, 2020

Sithmaster0 said:
That makes sense, the two polyps dropped and now are new little hammer frags that I have. But in the case of my alk, I literally cannot get it up. I'm dosing around 250 mills of red sea alk solution every 10 days for a 32 biocube but it keeps falling. Is this an issue of the corals growing too quickly or is the alk just precipitating out due to a chemistry problem?

get your Mg Up to around 1350 or more and then your alk should start coming up. What are you testing with? I haven't tried to salvage many of my drops, they typically get blown away or lost in the rock work.. here is one that was a little blob and now it's gown a mouth

Some of the pieces that fall off may have tiny pieces of skeleton attached, those are the ones that are most viable for surviving.

Retro Reefer · May 15, 2020

The trumpet colony in the foreground is around 5 years old and is the one that drops its flesh, it's still growing like the plague though.. lol. my other trumpets do it also but not as much. It always happens up underneath the colony. My water parameters are basically perfect..