Hammer coral help

[Jurel6570]

Hi I am fairly new to this hobby. My tank has been set up for over 9 months. I checked my water and all is good. 1.026 sal cal is at 500 and alk is at 8.3. I do a 10% water change every ten days due to no protien skimmer. My problem is my hammer coral just keeps receding. I have moved it all around the tank to see what light and flow is the best. The part I don't understand is the frogspawn and torch are thriving. I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[fsalazar]

Have you dipped it?

 

[Jurel6570]

No I haven't not sure what to use to dip with.

 

[shawnvidrine]

What kind of load do you have on the tank.

 

[Reus]

Trry diping in Iodine.

 

[Tweaked]

Let me guess, a wall hammer

 

[Jurel6570]

As far as load I have a 2 bubble tips yes a wall hammer, some ZOA's, couple mushrooms, frogspwan,and a torch. For fish there are a pair of oci clowns, firefish, a four stripe damsel, yellow watchman, and a manderian goby.

 

[rhdoug]

Wall hammers do not have a great track record for some reason, branching hammers seem to be much hardier. Good luck with it, and keep your eye out for a branching one to replace it in the meantime.

 

[Pluedke1]

I have an Aussie orange wall hammer and it likes the blue under my radions a lot better. Try putting it in the shade of daylight but where it gets blue. That is where mine looks the best. Good luck

 

[Vgyoung]

similar problem nothing seemed off in my tank but my frogspawn kept receding i learned my nitrate tester was off and isntead of the reading of 0-5 i was getting 20 nitrates at the lfs so double and triple check your nitrates

 

[Jurel6570]

Thank you for all of the suggestion. I have moved it so it is not in direct light and it seems to be coming back. I am looking into getting new test kits or even getting the hanna checkers for the big tests.