Help with hammer

Drewl117

New member
So I have this big hammer and for the past 2 1/2 weeks it hasn't opened. All my other corals are doing fine. I do have a frag of it in a frag tank which is plumbed into my system.
e4f9128c6dee47c8ec5012214d6d3594.jpg

It used to look like this...
7c452cd2c2abd17a4ceeab58ab562b58.jpg

Water params are all pretty respectable... I'll post them in a min.
What do you guys think? I haven't seen any pests.


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I doubt it... it is rare to see the shrimp on it... the shrimp usually hang out on the other side of the tank and it has been a while since it has opened. It sucks because I bought this hammer about 8 years ago as a single head.
 
Reaching here but Fall means open windows which sometimes equates to a PH bounce. Any chance? Since you are in the Northeast like me it's something that is always in the back of my head. Rare but worth a mention.

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I did have high ph all summer(with windows open). Ph was up to 8.5 and since I shut the windows its down to 8.3. I never thought about that... now you have me thinking
 
You might want to try moving the Hammer coral to the bottom of the tank for awhile and see how it responds. Those LED's can be pretty intense sometimes.
 
That's what I don't get... it's already pretty close to the bottom of the tank. I haven't changed the lights at all. It looked awesome for ever and got huge then it just stopped opening.
 
I hate to disagree but sometimes moving it stresses the coral more. Its always a last ditch effort for me. And in this case especially - seeing the duration this has been in the same position is rather long. Are you positive nothing is picking at it at night? Maybe a last ditch effort would be to try a dip in iodine or similar product.

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I don't think anything Is picking... hard to say I guess. I used to run GFO all the time and stripped my water of phosphates and I lost some coral but only sps. I even stopped using carbon for the most part, if I do I use it it's in small amounts now(it's the rox from Brs). My sps are all coming back now too but none of my lps seamed to skip a beat when that all went down. It's been over 3 months since I used GFO.
 
When was the last time you performed a water change? I have always been surprised at how well some corals react to a water change when not doing so well. Branching hammers are usually pretty hardy corals and do well in a wide range of parameters; however, IME, they don't like a lot of flow though.

When you say all other corals are doing fine, specifically what corals are doing fine?
 
I do regular monthly water changes and the last one was last Sunday. I thought the same and did a water change, it had no reaction to it.
 
It's a natural reaction to want to do "something" in an effort to turn this around but as I alluded to earlier, this can always make things worse. Best to leave it alone. If you do anything lower light, change flow etc... go slow


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So I have this big hammer and for the past 2 1/2 weeks it hasn't opened. All my other corals are doing fine. I do have a frag of it in a frag tank which is plumbed into my system.
e4f9128c6dee47c8ec5012214d6d3594.jpg

It used to look like this...
7c452cd2c2abd17a4ceeab58ab562b58.jpg

Water params are all pretty respectable... I'll post them in a min.
What do you guys think? I haven't seen any pests.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

My bad. You could see how I got caught though right? ;)
 
I had a similar experience, I had a big green hammer that was doing great till one day, it just closed up. It lasted a good month closed up before it started dying. Sadly I don't know how to fix this because mine didn't end well.. good luck
 
I had a similar experience, I had a big green hammer that was doing great till one day, it just closed up. It lasted a good month closed up before it started dying. Sadly I don't know how to fix this because mine didn't end well.. good luck

That's not the news I wanted to hear... hahaha
 
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