Shriveled UP Neon Splater Hammer Coral??

[noahrhuskey]

Well Hello,

So I'm new to salt water so of course i jumped all the way in and started buying a couple pieces of coral (mostly soft). I was told the ones i got are hardy and can make it through most things. One piece is a zoanthid coral and another is a polyp coral and they are doing well. Seeing that they are doing well in this new tank I wanted to get a "show piece" so i got a large neon splatter hammer coral. I was told they are hardy when i bought it buttttt eh. It was about the size of a baseball and after acclimation for about 30 minutes, it opened up to a decent size in the tank. After a couple days I changed out my filter sock since it was over flowing and really brown. I tested my water and my nitrate dropped to 0.

This is what they Hammer Coral looks like now. Im scared i washed all my good bacteria down the drain when i switched out the filter sock...I added a bottle fritz 9 bacteria to try to boost the nitrates but it has not helped. (bottle was meant for 20g and did not want to add tooooo much) also turned skimmer and carbon filter off.

Specs and images below.

Specs:
Tank- 80g (5'x20"x14'')
Sump - 29g (30"x12"x18") Using around 14g
Return Pump- Jebao MDC-3500 (flow set to 85)
Skimmer- Aquatop xyclone
Filtration- 15inch Felt Filter Sock
Lighting- (2) AI PrimeHD reef (third on its way in mail)
Reactor- BRS Carbon/GFO single reactor (only using carbon rn) with Vivosun 800gph pump
Dosing- Jebao Doser 3.4 (ME Coral 2 part alk,cal)
Power Head- SunSun JVP wavemakers (cheep from amazon till i can save up for couple Nero5)

Parameters: (as of today)
Po4- 0
Ca2 - 400
Ph- 8.2
Kh- 8.5
Nh3/4- 0
No2- 0
No3- 0
Temp- 77.6F
Sal- 1.024

Lighting scheduled:

Fish:
2 clowns
1 yellow Tang

This tank is only about 2ish months old so i was wondering if anyone could give me any feedback to hopefully keep this guy alive. Thanks!

More pics and specs at https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/its-not-much-im-giving-it-a-shot-80g-reef-kinda.714043/

 

[mcshams]

keep watching this. These corals can shrink and expand often. I don't see a ton of stress or problems for it at the moment.

 

[noahrhuskey]

keep watching this. These corals can shrink and expand often. I don't see a ton of stress or problems for it at the moment.

Thanks for the response! I thought my parameters were okay minus the low nitrate after all the research I've done. I will continue to watch and update if anything changes.

 

[TripleTruble]

Curious how much flow is he seeing in that spot?

 

[noahrhuskey]

Curious how much flow is he seeing in that spot?

I would say medium flow. Its on the other side of the tank from the power head. When it was extended it had decent movement then closed up a couple days ago. So i moved it down to the sand where there was hardly any flow and nothing changed. Its been back in the original place now for a day and still not extending out. sooo confused haha

 

[TripleTruble]

Don’t move him around too much. Let him settle in. As long as when he is out his feelers are not getting whipped around you fine.

 

[TripleTruble]

I just did a massive clean and move around my tank and mine is being stingy as well. The only coral that hasn’t fully opened up. But I would give it a few days andvwatch

 

[noahrhuskey]

I just did a massive clean and move around my tank and mine is being stingy as well. The only coral that hasn’t fully opened up. But I would give it a few days andvwatch

Thanks for the info! I'll let him sit and watch what he does, I might have just upset him.

 

[Fallenreef]

If the coral does not improve, you can always try dipping it in iodine. That has always help me