I have had my green hammer coral for a while and it has been very happy. today he is only opening 1 of its 3 parts. almost looks like the other two that are not opened are dying, look at pic below. I recently moved him to a different spot in aquarium yesterday, same level in tank though. temp is 78, all water levels are good. please help!!
green hammer coral
- Thread starter Morrisons
- Start date
ReefKeep66
New member
What's your lighting? How strong of flow? What are your paramters?
rlm2005
New member
It's just retracted, they will do that if disturbed, annoyed and sometimes just because. How much flow is it getting? I wouldn't worry too much unless you start to see the white skeleton and/or brown jelly on it. How old is the tank and what are your exact parameters? It's helpful when you post if you can include the actual numbers.
my tank is 55 gallon, t5 high output lighting. its placed in the middle of tank. only a little more flow from the old spot I moved it to. I can start to see a little bit of the white skeleton on one of them. temp is 78. salinity is 1.023. ph is 8.3 no nitrite. nitrate is 4.0 I would consider the water flow to be low to moderate. why is one strand extended and the others looking like their dying?
Leave it be for now. You may have damaged some tissue moving it and it's not happy. Or as stated, sometimes they just retract. Your salinity is low, you should slowly raise it up to 1.026. You didn't post results for ca, alk, and mag which leads me to believe you're not testing them. You have to test if your going to keep hard corals.
Also, it's a branching hammer. It appears that one (the open branch) of the three branches are no longer connected by tissue and therefore may not react the same as the two that are still connected. The skeleton at the base is dead and only serves as support for the colony, which is normal. They will continue to split and branch as they grow.
As far as flow, as long as it's not getting blown to hell, where it's noticeably getting hammered it should be fine. They don't need a ton of flow or a ton of light.
Also, it's a branching hammer. It appears that one (the open branch) of the three branches are no longer connected by tissue and therefore may not react the same as the two that are still connected. The skeleton at the base is dead and only serves as support for the colony, which is normal. They will continue to split and branch as they grow.
As far as flow, as long as it's not getting blown to hell, where it's noticeably getting hammered it should be fine. They don't need a ton of flow or a ton of light.
MondoBongo
Obligate Feeder Obsessed
after salinity and temp, my first stop when diagnosing coral is always alkalinity. swinging alk will wreak all kinds of havoc on things.
after that i usually think cal, mag.
after that i usually think cal, mag.
shesacharmer
New member
Once in a while they purge themselves of all water and retract. On mine each head behaved independently so while one or two could be normal the other was doing it's own thing. Coral hates being moved.
firebirdude
User and Abuser
You moved him yesterday and today he's not fully open. Sounds perfectly normal to me.
Post up when it's been 5+ days of him not opening.
Post up when it's been 5+ days of him not opening.
Overnight a membrane grew over one branch
Overnight a membrane grew over one branch
(Dad here)
We didn't realize we needed the extra tests, we'll pick those up today.
However overnight some sort of membrane grew over the smallest branch and now seems to be growing over the other one (see pic). Should we remove it or leave it?
More background:
The day it didn't open there was a snail crawling between those two branches cleaning them. We took the snail off but you can see white where he cleaned the branches.
The tank (55Gal w/20Gal sump) is new. It's been running about a month and has 60 pounds of dry rock, about 5 pounds of live rock, 60 pounds of live sand.
Also, we don't have an RO/DI system. So we've been using filtered water from the refrigerator. We've talked to local fish shops and they seem to think that the local tap water is pretty good.
Thanks in advance.
-Mike
Overnight a membrane grew over one branch
(Dad here)
We didn't realize we needed the extra tests, we'll pick those up today.
However overnight some sort of membrane grew over the smallest branch and now seems to be growing over the other one (see pic). Should we remove it or leave it?
More background:
The day it didn't open there was a snail crawling between those two branches cleaning them. We took the snail off but you can see white where he cleaned the branches.
The tank (55Gal w/20Gal sump) is new. It's been running about a month and has 60 pounds of dry rock, about 5 pounds of live rock, 60 pounds of live sand.
Also, we don't have an RO/DI system. So we've been using filtered water from the refrigerator. We've talked to local fish shops and they seem to think that the local tap water is pretty good.
Thanks in advance.
-Mike
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YOu have to supplement calcium for a hammer or any stony coral. Your tests and results should look like mine in my sig line: you will need tests for alk, cal, and mg and you will need supplements for same. This coral is apparently being starved of an essential except for water changes, and if these three readings are off from my readings it is still a problem. All 3 have to be in balance.
'pretty good' water isn't good enough. When seasalt balances are made up they don't subract fractions of elements your water may already have, or find a way to erase things that shouldn't be in the water at all. Get a ro/di and just let bristleworms and snails work: sometimes they can save a coral by taking off the dying part, though in a hammer that's not so likely.
Mike and family,
I'm going to give you a little advice that I think will go a long way.
First of all, don't put any more creatures in your tank. You need to get a good grasp on seawater chemistry. Get all of your test kits. Calcium, Alkalinity, Magnesium, Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate and a refractometer designed for seawater. Make sure all of these levels are within the acceptable range for hard corals for at least a month. I would test everything once a week. Resist the urge to feed your fish too much or too often. Twice a day is enough.
Do not use tap water. I don't care how good someone says it is, it ain't good enough, because you simply have no way to tell or control the quality. A fridge filter may be good enough to drink from and it will likely not kill any of your inhabitants, but it will almost certainly lead to nuisance algae. Buy a 4 stage ro/di filter with a tds meter. Trust me you're going to need a lot of water in this hobby and it will pay for itself in no time. Also, you should be performing 10% weekly water changes from now on.
As far as what's in the tank right now, I suggest you take that yellow tang back to the LFS. In just several months he'll be too big and will likely become madder than a rattlesnake. There is simply no tang that can live well in a 55 gallon tank. Second, I would return those clove polyps. Unless you just absolutely love them, they are going to become more trouble than their worth. As far as the hammer. Those two branches are likely dead. It looks like they're covered in fungus, I would frag them and get them out of your tank.
Which leads me to my next topic of pests and disease. I doubt you quarantined those fish, which is not good practice. You never want to simply add livestock to your main tank. I guarantee the day will come when you put a fish in and it infects your whole tank. As far as corals, you should dip absolutely everything before you put it in your tank. There are many pests out there that are very difficult to irradiate once they make it into your system.
That's all I've got for now, just make sure you spend the time researching and being patient and you'll likely end up with a nice reef tank you'll be proud of. Also, be prepared for some changes coming to your tank in the very near future. You sand and rocks will likely turn brown (diatoms), then green, then grayish and finally if you're keeping up on your husbandry, purple.
Ok thanks for the advice.
We're going to go buy some RO water tomorrow and do a change and starting looking to buy a system. Any suggestions would be appreciated (something like this I'm guessing?): http://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Omega-4-stage-RO-DI-reef-aquarium-water-filter-system-with-free-tds-meter-/390388227588
We removed the two dead hammer branches. It didn't make the other three branches happy, but I guess we'll see how that goes.
We've ordered the refractometer and the "Pinpoint" calibration fluid I've seen recommended here. Couldn't find a local source for a complete Mg, Ca, Al test kit so we'll have to order that online I guess.
The family is really attached to the Tang, so that might be a hard sell to get them to return it. I'll research it more however.
Thanks again.
-Mike
Bulk Reef Supply, Marine Depot and some other sponsors here have great products at very competitive prices. Make sure the rodi unit comes with an auto shut off. A pressure gauge would be helpful too. I would purchase Sailfert or Red Sea test kits.
As far as the tang goes I promise you he won't live a full life in that size tank.
Here is a great source to do preliminary research on fish and corals.
"Yellow Tang. Minimum 100 Gallon Tank. Adult size 8 inches"
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+43+392&pcatid=392
As far as the tang goes I promise you he won't live a full life in that size tank.
Here is a great source to do preliminary research on fish and corals.
"Yellow Tang. Minimum 100 Gallon Tank. Adult size 8 inches"
http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+43+392&pcatid=392
So just to follow up on the Hammer. We removed the dead branches yesterday and the remaining seem to be fine today.
I'm picking up a used BRS 5 stage RODI today, but the tank is in a room without any water feeds. I suppose I could go into the crawlspace under the floor and see if I could locate a source and run a feed up through the wall to the tank. But that seems like a future project.
-MM
I'm picking up a used BRS 5 stage RODI today, but the tank is in a room without any water feeds. I suppose I could go into the crawlspace under the floor and see if I could locate a source and run a feed up through the wall to the tank. But that seems like a future project.
-MM
