Hammer is dying. Help.

[hawken04]

I've had this Hammer for a few weeks and he's been doing great until a few days ago. It looks like its slowly dying and pulling away from the skeleton. I'm new to the hobby and would appreciate any advice. I had my LFS test my water yesterday so I'll post the stats below and a photo before and now. My tank is a 29 Biocube running live rock rubble and chemipure elite as filters. Thanks for any suggestions.

Josh

Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
Magnesium 1520
Calcium 450
Alk 8.4 duh
PH 8.1
Phos 0
Ammonia 0
Salt 1.023

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Your Mag is VERY high, Cal is high as well, are you dosing anything? Also your SG needs to come up to 1.025-1.026 What kind of salt do you use?

Your hammer is a wall type hammer and they're extremely hard to keep. You really need to get those parameters under control and keep them steady. You'll more than likely lose this one. I suggest that in the future you get the branching type Euphyllia either hammers, frogspawn or torches. But make sure they are all the branching type and not walls. If they are walls as long as they've never been fragged you should be ok. The fragged ones don't live much more than 2 months at best.

 

[hawken04]

Thanks for the reply. I bought this hammer because I was told they were easy to keep and I actually bought it instead of the branching type. Probably trusted the salesman to much. I generally do my own research but every site has a different opinion so its hard to ever know for sure. I'll definately go for the branching ones next time. Live and learn I guess but I hope I don't lose him. I'm not dosing anything right now. If I should be, any suggestions? I'm using Instant Ocean Salt. I appreciate the help and suggestions and I'll work on getting my Mag and Calc down.

 

[timnem70]

I have high mag as well. I use Fritz PRO. It has high Mag. High mag.seemingly

 

[timnem70]

Don't know why that last sentence repeated? Sorry.

 

[HammerLover]

I've kept wall hammers before and they aren't hard like most people say. If you fragged ones those can run a risk of brown jelly, so I usually buy whole small colonies instead.

Fix your parameters first, but my wall hammers were happy in a bit of nitrates and phosphates.

Keep them in indirect flow, just enough to swish their tentacles a bit. Too much flow will tear the polyps and will slowly kill the coral and the effects of this will only show in a few months so be very very careful. These are whole colonies so if a portion gets brown jelly your going to lose the whole colony quick.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Hammerlover they are very hard to keep once fragged. I've been at this a long time and I've not been able to keep one more than 6 months that's been fragged.,

Hawken, here is a link about treating bacterial infections with iodine. Just get the iodine at any pharmacy. You can also try Revive it's a great product and I use it all the time. One other thing your hammer does not appear to have brown jelly disease and my last one didn't either. I've got a never before fragged wall hammer now that is doing great. It's just not worth it to even try to keep a wall that's been fragged, too much time trouble and money to lose. Stick with the branching as you stated above. But do give the iodine dip as well as get a bottle of Revive

http://www.athiel.com/lib/bacterial.html

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Don't know why that last sentence repeated? Sorry.

LMAO there is an EDIT button that you can click to change screwed up typoed messages. It's right next to Quote for one hour after you post the message.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I've kept wall hammers before and they aren't hard like most people say. If you fragged ones those can run a risk of brown jelly, so I usually buy whole small colonies instead.

Fix your parameters first, but my wall hammers were happy in a bit of nitrates and phosphates.

Keep them in indirect flow, just enough to swish their tentacles a bit. Too much flow will tear the polyps and will slowly kill the coral and the effects of this will only show in a few months so be very very careful. These are whole colonies so if a portion gets brown jelly your going to lose the whole colony quick.

The wall hammer the OP has, has been fragged. You can see it in the picture.

 

[hawken04]

Thanks for all the great info. I've got a bottle of Revive on the way now and I'll try the dip. Maybe I'll still get lucky but glad I at least know what to look out for now. I had no idea it had been fragged or that that was even an issue. I was worried about brown jelly so its good to hear it doesn't look like thats the case. I appreciate everyones help.

 

[HammerLover]

Hammerlover they are very hard to keep once fragged. I've been at this a long time and I've not been able to keep one more than 6 months that's been fragged.,

Hawken, here is a link about treating bacterial infections with iodine. Just get the iodine at any pharmacy. You can also try Revive it's a great product and I use it all the time. One other thing your hammer does not appear to have brown jelly disease and my last one didn't either. I've got a never before fragged wall hammer now that is doing great. It's just not worth it to even try to keep a wall that's been fragged, too much time trouble and money to lose. Stick with the branching as you stated above. But do give the iodine dip as well as get a bottle of Revive

http://www.athiel.com/lib/bacterial.html

Yup, wall hammers are pretty much prone to dying if fragged that's why I buy small whole colonies. I always loved the wall ones because you can have many colors to choose from.

I've got green, purple, orange and a golden tipped hammers that were all happy. My purple ones were very voracious in feeding buy my green and orange ones seems to be fine without any additional feeding

 

[hawken04]

So are there other corals to watch out for if they've been fragged? And just so I'm clear does that mean they grew from a frag or were once larger and have had frags taken from them?

 

[HammerLover]

So are there other corals to watch out for if they've been fragged? And just so I'm clear does that mean they grew from a frag or were once larger and have had frags taken from them?

There are other wall corals too like wall frogspawns. Mostly the euphyllias were very prone to brown jelly but other corals like bubble corals do well even though they were fragged.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

Only other one I'd stay away from are the Gonipora's they're very hard to keep unless you buy one of the ORA ones from LA.

Fragged means it's skeleton has been cut, if it's never been cut then it's a full colony. Some are larger than others and doesn't matter if it's got 5 heads or 100 as long as it's not been cut it's not a frag.

 

[hawken04]

Thanks again for your help and information. The Hammer is still dying so I may lose this one but at least I know better next time. Thanks.