Problems with hammer corals

Nayeem Hasan · Jan 20, 2019

Hello everyone

I have a 8ft X 2ft X 2ft reef tank mainly of low corals. It's been 4 years I am into this but recently I am facing some problems with the hammer corals. The head of the tentacles are getting smaller and thinner. The water parameters aregood.

Please suggest me a way to overcome this problem.

Thanks.

TheEngineer · Jan 20, 2019

Congrats on your first post after 2 years of membership

haha

Can you share a picture? Is it just the tips or is the whole polyp not fully inflating?

mtraylor · Jan 20, 2019

Low alk can do that

Mical · Jan 20, 2019

What are your params?

Nayeem Hasan · Jan 21, 2019

This the position of the hammer coral

It was like this before

Nayeem Hasan · Jan 21, 2019

mtraylor said:
Low alk can do that

It is 11dkh alkanity. Do I need to increase it?

Nayeem Hasan · Jan 21, 2019

Mical said:
What are your params?

Nitrate 5ppm
Ammonia 0ppm
Calcium 450
Mg 1230
Phosphate 0.3
Salinity 26
Ph 8.18

Hemmdog · Jan 21, 2019

Nayeem Hasan said:
It is 11dkh alkanity. Do I need to increase it?

No. Do you feed it mysis? Do you dose trace elements?

Your mag is to low for that amount of nutrient. And your phos is really really high.

Nayeem Hasan · Jan 21, 2019

Hemmdog said:
No. Do you feed it mysis? Do you dose trace elements?

Your mag is to low for that amount of nutrient. And your phos is really really high.

No I don't give mysis but powder food and red sea A B and dose red sea color ABCD. trace elements is present in the color red sea product

Hemmdog · Jan 21, 2019

Yea the high phos is from the powdered food. Reduce feeding that to once a week and incorporate some frozen/fresh food into your daily routine

Nayeem Hasan said:
No I don't give mysis but powder food and red sea A B and dose red sea color ABCD. trace elements is present in the color red sea product

TheEngineer · Jan 21, 2019

He likely meant .03 phosphate, I’m assuming.

Waters · Jan 21, 2019

Assuming this is a LPS tank, I really don't see any issues with the parameters, assuming they are kept stable (even if the phosphates are .3) If anything, I would slightly lower the ALK. Have you made any changes to flow or lighting since the Hammers started to shrink? Have you tried spot feeding them? It almost looks like it is reacting to lighting that is too intense.

mtraylor · Jan 21, 2019

Other than the high alk. I would try and get it down to around at least 10. The next thingbyou need to donis measure your alk and temp several times a day to see if there is a big swing. Also i would stop all the feedings just for corals. Jmo