What is causing my hammers to look like this?

[Cincyreefer513]

I received a nice hammer last week and it's experiencing similar issues as my first one did over 2 months ago. The tentacles are pinching at the base. Almost like a thread. See photos...

Current hammer before.

And currently.

My first hammer after about 3-4 weeks in the tank.

And currently. The tentacles look much better with the exception of the scrawny ones on the ends. It has split once and appears to be splitting again right now.

The first one I believe was from too high lighting. I didn't realize Ocean Revive lights are super crazy strong and had whites up pretty far. After dropping some tentacles and looking really bad with super pinched tentacles, I moved it down and it has ever so slowly gotten better. It now sits in 85 PAR. Very light flow.

The new one looked great for the first 2 days and then began to go down hill. It sat in low/medium current at 120 PAR. Then I moved it to where I wanted it. Very light flow and 130 PAR. It quickly looked terrible and dropped some tentacles. I moved it to an 80 PAR spot with almost no flow for now.

Now for the parameters. This might be where my issue is??? I'm only going to go with parameters for the past week since hammer#1 is doing ok, but #2 is struggling.

Temp 78
Salinity 1.026 refractometer
PH 8.2 API
Nitrates 10 API
Alk Salifert (had been a very consistent 8.3-8.6. Due to dosing this past week, it's been 7.7-8.6 past couple days 7.7)
Magnesium Salifert (I finally got a test kit in last week and it was reading as low as 1090. I bought Mag/Ca/Alk to dose and have since kept it in the 1350-1455 range. It took a few days to go up.
Calcium Salifert ( never below 370. Past week has been 390-425)
Phosphate Hanna ulr (just got it last week. Only done test a couple times. Not 100% sure I'm error free, but readings have been between 0.31-0.55) still learning how to use it.

I realize magnesium has been super low before dosing and phosphate is potentially quite high if those readings are correct. I can get more into potential phosphate possibilities if people think this is necessary.
I've had the tank for 3 months. It was bought used and the previous owner had the media and about 15lbs of rock going for a year prior. I added maybe 30-35lbs of uncured dry rock.
All other LPS and softies are doing well.

 

[blaxsun]

Having killed my fair share of hammers, what I can offer from my own observations is that the smaller frags do not seem to like being in the substrate. Nor do they really like high lighting or flow (I would say the ones currently thriving are in low flow and low PAR of between 65-85).

I only have one hammer in my substrate, and it's a rather large one with 2" base - so it's well off the sand bed and sheltered between a few rocks so it doesn't get a lot of direct flow.

 

[HB AL]

Getting an ICP test done on your water would give you an answer if its something in the water chemistry causing there demise.

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

It sounds like you already figured out the problem -- you shocked them with higher lighting than they were used to. If you knew the first one did poorly until you moved it to 85, why did you put the other at 120 and then 130?
(*No judgement, just curious about your methods)

 

[Speaker]

Id say its probably the low magnesium. How long has it been that low? It will take some time for them to bounce back. You should notice them looking better. I like to keep mine between 1450-1500ppm. Id work on lowering your phosphate slowly over the next month or so as well 0.1 - 0.06ppm if that reading is indeed accurate. I doubt that is hurting the hammer though. The sand bed thing blaxsun mentioned is also something I have noticed. My hammers are sitting between 150-180par and doing fine.

 

[Lavey29]

My hammers have been thriving until recently. I noticed a head here and there on several hammers starting to recede. Several weeks later the head is dead. I asked my coral vendor about this and he said hammers are prone to bacteria that will slowly kill them off. He said when he has a head start to die he frags it off the colony so the bacteria infection does not get into the remaining good heads. Not sure this is your particular problem but just sharing my current situation with you.

 

[Cincyreefer513]

Having killed my fair share of hammers, what I can offer from my own observations is that the smaller frags do not seem to like being in the substrate. Nor do they really like high lighting or flow (I would say the ones currently thriving are in low flow and low PAR of between 65-85).

I only have one hammer in my substrate, and it's a rather large one with 2" base - so it's well off the sand bed and sheltered between a few rocks so it doesn't get a lot of direct flow.

Blaxsun, so keep it around 80 PAR where it is now, but place a small rock under it? Maybe 2-3 inches off the sand?

It sounds like you already figured out the problem -- you shocked them with higher lighting than they were used to. If you knew the first one did poorly until you moved it to 85, why did you put the other at 120 and then 130?
(*No judgement, just curious about your methods)

Erin, the first hammer was placed in nearly 300 PAR. I only found out later because I rented a PAR meter and ramped up the lights for a minute to see what it was afterward. When it began to look bad originally, I just guessed on a slightly lower spot and also dropped the lighting. When I got the PAR meter, it showed that the majority was 85, but the far left side is at 110.
Many people say hammers are good in sub 180 range so I figured 120-130 would be good. I'm still not convinced the second one is suffering from high lighting.

Id say its probably the low magnesium. How long has it been that low? It will take some time for them to bounce back. You should notice them looking better. I like to keep mine between 1450-1500ppm. Id work on lowering your phosphate slowly over the next month or so as well 0.1 - 0.06ppm if that reading is indeed accurate. I doubt that is hurting the hammer though. The sand bed thing blaxsun mentioned is also something I have noticed. My hammers are sitting between 150-180par and doing fine.

Speaker, that's the million dollar question. I've had an Alk and Ca test for a couple months now, right after getting the hammer. Magnesium and phosphate tests had been out at the lfs this whole time. I finally decided to get them via BRS and those came in last week. I use Fritz RPM Blue Box salt and do weekly 20% water changes. With magnesium reading so low when I got the test kit, it's probably been low for quite a while. It was 1125 the first test and 1090 the second day. Then I bought everything for dosing and upped it 90-110ppm per day. Currently 1350 or better. I've never done a water test on a fresh batch, but typically do a test the day after a WC and my Ca is usually 410-400. A week later it's typically 390-380. Alk is almost always 8.45. occasionally 8.3 or 8.6. At least those 2 parameters have been ok.
I'll look into how to safely drop the phosphate a bit once I figure out if my test is accurate or not. For example, not spilling reagent powder everywhere...

Does anyone know if the pinched tentacle look is usually due to one reason or another or do they act like this for a variety of reasons?

Thank you for the responses everyone!

 

[Cincyreefer513]

Getting an ICP test done on your water would give you an answer if its something in the water chemistry causing there demise.

A possibility for sure if things don't turn around.
One other factor here is my 5 stage RODI. I bought used. It was reading 0 TDS so I went with it. It took 4-4.5hrs to make just 5 gallons. Between some consultation and me wondering if something was clogged, I ordered new everything (filters, carbon, DI, membrane) from BRS which came in last week. The old filters looked like they had been sitting in the sewer. So anything is possible I suppose if something was getting through, but still reading 0 TDS. It's one thought I have as to possible high phosphate. Tonight will be the first water change with the new water. My RODI now only takes 1hr, 10 minutes to make 5 gallons.

 

[blaxsun]

I don't think it could hurt to try and raise it up from the substrate by an inch or two. Keep in mind what @Lavey29 said about bacterial infections: hammers are very prone to them, and sometimes once they take hold there's no saving the coral.

Case in-point, last month I had two hammers in different parts of the tank that were receding and showing symptoms similar to yours. I tried moving them both; one has since recovered but the other developed BJD overnight and had to be tossed. I also had some success way back treating a sick hammer with Reef Primer, and while it stopped the recession for a few months that coral later also succumbed to BJD. So that's something else you could try as a Hail Mary.

 

[Cincyreefer513]

Are there any visual signs to look for besides brown jelly? Are these bacterial infections contagious to any other LPS or just other hammers?

 

[blaxsun]

Are there any visual signs to look for besides brown jelly? Are these bacterial infections contagious to any other LPS or just other hammers?

You can always try the smell test. Anything that absolutely reeks needs to go. In my tank it never seemed to spread beyond hammers and frogspawn (torches and all my other LPS were fine).

 

[useer10202820]

Euphyllia eating flatworms. Some say that they only go after torches, well after picking up a new hammer from a LFS, few weeks later it was struggling. Dipped in Iodine and notice a weird worm on it. Looked it up and well, they also like hammers.

 

[Cincyreefer513]

I guess I'll try the smell test tonight when I do a WC.

I've been looking for flatworms everyday as well. Nothing yet. All of my corals get dipped in Revive, but I guess this wouldn't kill flatworms.

 

[useer10202820]

I guess I'll try the smell test tonight when I do a WC.

I've been looking for flatworms everyday as well. Nothing yet. All of my corals get dipped in Revive, but I guess this wouldn't kill flatworms.

It will stun them and allow for you to shake them off, blow them with a turkey baster etc. Iodine also works. Dip every week or so until you find none. You will have eggs, just wont see them.

 

[Cincyreefer513]

The hammer passed the smell test and was moved to the other side of the tank perched about 2 inches off the sand on a rock. It's angled at about 45 degrees which I don't like and the flow is a bit higher than the other side. At least it's off the sand. PAR is also about 80 there. We'll see if it gets better. It did drop roughly 8 more tentacles when I was moving it.
A water change was performed late last night and testing was done 30 minutes after. Parameters were:

Temp 78
Salinity 1.026
PH 8.2
Alk 7.7
Ca 395
Mag 1365
Phos 0.41 (I believe everything was done correctly this time so likely accurate)

 

[bsagea]

Having killed my fair share of hammers, what I can offer from my own observations is that the smaller frags do not seem to like being in the substrate. Nor do they really like high lighting or flow (I would say the ones currently thriving are in low flow and low PAR of between 65-85).

I only have one hammer in my substrate, and it's a rather large one with 2" base - so it's well off the sand bed and sheltered between a few rocks so it doesn't get a lot of direct flow.

My hammers and frogspawns under (2) 150 20k metal halides, (4) t5's and a Reefbrite strip. Three months ago they were under a 250 20k halide and pc's...I have a good amount of flow as well and don't see any issues with that. They seem to love all of it. I get great growth and color.
bsa

 

[Harold999]

I asked my coral vendor about this and he said hammers are prone to bacteria that will slowly kill them off.

They become prone if they aren't healthy because of a bad parameter/conditions.

 

[blaxsun]

My hammers and frogspawns under (2) 150 20k metal halides, (4) t5's and a Reefbrite strip. Three months ago they were under a 250 20k halide and pc's...I have a good amount of flow as well and don't see any issues with that. They seem to love all of it. I get great growth and color.
bsa

Very nice collection of hammers!

 

[Lavey29]

They become prone if they aren't healthy because of a bad parameter/conditions.

Yes that could be a factor but bacteria can get into the tank from other sources as well even if you have perfect conditions present.

 

[Lavey29]

Are there any visual signs to look for besides brown jelly? Are these bacterial infections contagious to any other LPS or just other hammers?

Mine just showed slow decline one head at a time to my hammers and torches. Took a week or two to lose a head maybe 3. Everything checked ok no evidence of BJD. Coral vendor said it was bacteria and frag off declining heads to save the rest. I dosed one 125mg ciprofloaxin and everything went back to healthy and thriving again.