Hammer coral skeleton?

[subbedout]

I just got some hammer coral this weekend and one of the heads appears to have a "section" missing and what looks like a white skeleton is visible in that section.

Current water parameters are: alk:9, ph:8, sg: 1.023 (slowing bringing it up as LFS water is a bit low), cal: 460, ammonia: 0, nitrite: 0, nitrate: 30 (been at this level for month since set up tank), phosphate:
.25, temp: 76.1

What's going on? How to fix /prevent this? Thanks in advance!

 

[Yolly416]

Your phosphate and nitrate a little high


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[subbedout]

Also meant to add placed them at bottom of tank in area with moderate flow

 

[mcgyvr]

The coral was just fragged (cut) from a larger colony with more heads..
I don't see anything wrong..

 

[subbedout]

The coral was just fragged (cut) from a larger colony with more heads..
I don't see anything wrong..

There's a piece missing where polyps are not present. There's white "skeleton" visible. I pointed to it with red.

 

[subbedout]

I moved the hammer to the corner of my tank in a lower flow area (hoping that will help). The left head looks like half is missing. Help?

 

[Apotack]

Should have enough flow to gently move. Keep an eye on the area but it's probably from fraging.

 

[ktownhero]

Leave it alone.

 

[sdbc]

I have one about 8" long and it has a couple of small sections like that. They developed a couple of years ago. The coral that's left expands and looks healthy. I don't see any regrowth there, so I think that's the way it's going to stay.

 

[subbedout]

OK so it's not a total loss? I'm hoping it was just caused by too much flow causing them to rub against the live rocks. Here's how they looked this morning (front and back):

 

[mcgyvr]

So when you bought it.. was there living flesh in that area or was it always showing the white skeleton?

Its not uncommon for one or more heads to die and others be just fine..
Most certainly when fragging close to one..

I can't tell if you last pictures are now showing flesh there or not.. But if not.. that head is just dead/gone.. The rest can/will be just fine..

 

[subbedout]

When I bought it on Sunday both heads were full and no polyps were missing. On Wednesday I noticed that a chunk of one of the two heads was missing and that the skeleton was exposed. I moved them to a different spot in my tank with less flow and now one head is completely full and the other has that chunk missing still.

 

[subbedout]

Last night they looked worse! Both heads were shriveled and the one with the missing chunk had polyps "dropping"...is there a way to stop or slow the rate of polyp loss?

 

[mcgyvr]

I've always found it to be a "just wait and see" situation with those..
you can try moving it to a lower flow area but..good luck.. it happens..

 

[vikinglord13]

I once purchased a torch frag with about three dead polyps. There was one that was dying, it was a half-brother to another (not fully split). All-in-all, the entire frag died and it was pretty obvious it was dying. Gradual recession by the day.

It looks to me as if yours is fine and may just not be happy with the lighting or the flow.

 

[mrdss]

COME ONE EVERYONE ! One of the heads is dead the flesh is gone.

 

[zachfishman]

Have any emerald crabs? They eat LPS IME. Your tank is very new, any chance of some hitchhikers in there (e.g. gorilla crabs) you don't know about yet?

 

[slief]

If this is in your newly setup system that is around 30 days old, I wouldn't expect it to do well. In fact, I've been growing hammer colonies for years now and sell them to locals from time to time and I wouldn't take your money at this stage. It's too soon to expect them to do well in your system and because of that, I wouldn't want to sell them to you knowing that they will likely die. Give it six months or so that way your system can stabilize some. Your system is going to go through lots of different changes over the next several months that make it a somewhat hostile environment for corals and some inverts. Be patient and don't rush things because your losses will add up in a hurry.

 

[sfdan]

I was siphoning debris out of my tank one time for a WC and accidentally got too close to a frogspawn and sucked off like half the flesh on a couple of heads. Both heads looked very similar to the picture here. Was sure I had killed it, but lo and behold the thing fully recovered in a matter of weeks. So if the coral is otherwise healthy, a wound like that can be recovered from.

Still though Euphyllia can be finicky, especially in a tank so young. I'd certainly check at night with a red light and see if anything is munching on it, but if you put it in a spot with the proper flow and it dies, sometimes that happens.

 

[subbedout]

Thanks for the replies. The other head died today so it's probably just too new of a tank (even though all other livestock seems to be doing well). I'll replace it in a few months when things are settled.