Hammer with Male Pattern Baldness

[sleepydoc]

I got a green hammer coral about 4-5 weeks ago and one of the heads has developed a bald spot. On it. The other head appears to be doing ok, and there are new buds developing on the main stem, so I think it's healthy otherwise.

There was a period where the Alk dropped to around 7 before I caught it, otherwise my params are as below. Any ideas as to what's going on?

KH 9.2 Mg 1300 Ca 390 pH 8.2 SG 1.026
NH4 0 NH2~0 NH3 2.5-5

 

[sleepydoc]

I accidentally posted in the soft forum first, so this is a 'duplicate' thread;

Someone there suggested brown jelly disease - are there any threads or sources with more info on this? I tried googling for some pics and it doesn't look exactly like the pics I found, but I can't be sure...

 

[Mental1]

This thread has some great pictures of brown jelly. I can't tell from your picture -- it doesn't look brown but it does look like the beginning stages. Just keep an eye out. If it goes brown, yank it out.

http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2213855&highlight=brown+jelly

There's a bunch of threads on RC so use the search function here instead of googling...

 

[day1]

That hammer is a branching Paraancora , looks like it is forming a new branch :beer:

 

[sleepydoc]

Cool! It didn't seem like brown jelly, but I haven't actually seen brown jelly to know for sure. It's been like this for a week or two, and from what I've read, brown jelly progresses faster than that.

I think I see some new buds coming through the bald spot - guess it's the hair implants!

 

[ssteal]

Doesnt look like brown jelly to me. How much flow u have on it. I thought mine were dieing awhile back, wouldnt open up all the way anymore one was gaping. Turned out had to much flow hitting it.

 

[sleepydoc]

Tried to make sure there's not too much flow - just enough to gently tussle the fronds. I played around with the power heads and the only way to reduce the flow further is to shut one off totally.

 

[Cptn Spaulding]

Definitely not brown jelly (at least yet). You will definitely notice it if it is brown jelly, which happens very quickly, even overnight...in which case cut that piece off and toss it. If you lose that one head even not from brown jelly, as long as the other one looks fine, you have all that new growth on the underside of the skeleton, which will be getting more light, which will make them grow faster, and you will have a colony instead of a frag in a year or two.

You could give it an iodide dip (lugol's) if it will give you peace of mind. That will kill any beginnings of an infection, or stop it from spreading.