Hammer Coral Sting

[Thisseemsfishy]

How long does a coral need to come in contact with another coral, mainly a Hammer before it starts to sting it?


A few Zoa's fell into my Hammer last night, the Zoa's were not affected suprisingly. But the hammer looks to have taken a turn for the worse now, not sure why. It doesn't look like like something just touched it and it shrank, the tenticle's shrunk and the middle swelled out. I've had this Hammer for a few months now and it has put on another head and looks very healthy. Any other reason why the Hammer could've acted this way. I have many more LPS and Softies in the tank that are fine.

Any ideas or thoughts would be great.

 

[Thisseemsfishy]

Just as an update and BUMP. I went home on lunch and the Hammer looks better, not swollen in the middle anymore. Its not as inflated as it usually is though....

I change my carbon once a month, its been 2 weeks. Should I go ahead and change it to help pull anything in the water out that might be irritating it?

 

[sh0rtcake00]

When the zoa fell on the hammer it may have released some toxins in defense. I would change it and run fresh carbon to get any toxins out of the water. Give it a few days and the hammer should slowly return normal as long as everything else is good in the tank.

 

[organism]

When the zoa fell on the hammer it may have released some toxins in defense. I would change it and run fresh carbon to get any toxins out of the water. Give it a few days and the hammer should slowly return normal as long as everything else is good in the tank.

That's a bit extreme...

My guess is the zoas stung the hammer, and their sting is really light and not much to worry about in that case, or the rock they were on nicked the skeleton, either way it'll be fine. Good to hear the zoas are ok though, if they'd been on there for long enough it might not've gone down that way.