Help with newly aquired golden hammer :(

[TrenchToast]

Was at a convention this past weekend and picked up a frag of a golden hammer. Looked healthy at the show. I brought it home and Revive diped it for about 5 minutes. Then placed it in the tank. It has yet to expand any of its polyps and is now looking like this. This is my first hammer. Not sure if this is brown jelly disease or just bad tissue.



I'm hoping it's not too late for this little guy, but it's been receded like this for 2 days now.

I'm going to my LFS today to have my water tested since I don't have all the testing supplies for all the measurements. Will post those later.

 

[Taahirs]

That looks to be beyond saving now.

 

[oldbones]

Doesn't look good...

HOWEVER, I have seen one come back from a similar state. If you can find a "safe" place for it, like in another, known successful tank, I would do so ASAP. Get your water right, get the thing nursed back to health, then try it again.

 

[TrenchToast]

That looks to be beyond saving now.

Yeah... I went to my LFS to get water and to have my water tested.

All my levels are good except my Mag and Phos. are low.
Mag: 1000
Phos: .000

LoL, she said my water was too clean.

I picked up the proper additives and some Lugol's Solution to give it a dip. When I got back I pulled it out and immediately noticed the not so pleasant smell coming from it. I used a small turkey baster to try to remove some of the brown material on top of it but came to realize that it had pretty much liquified by then. It all sucked out into the baster.. All that was left was the skeleton. :sad2:

While I was at my LFS I was telling them about it and showed them the same picture. I didn't get a good response from them either. They said that it could be multiple things that could make it die that suddenly. Could have died from stress from all the traveling. The vender might keep his Alk levels high for faster growth and then being introduced into a lower Alk level tank can kill it from shock. Ah well... win some loose some I guess.. still sucks though.

 

[Justintegra]

Did you literally give it a 5 minute dip then drop in your tank, or did you acclimate it?

 

[TrenchToast]

No, I acclimated it before dipping. Well to be exact I Acclimated then dipped it in the Acclimated water. Same as the other 5 corals I brought back from the convention. (green head frogspawn, Rainbow Acan, 3 Zoas) They are all doing fine.

 

[ajreefer721]

I had that happen to me with a green hammer coral when I first started. My salinity was way off and was the cause of the death by not properly acclimating it . Make sure you get all parameters checked and invest in some good test kits

 

[TrenchToast]

Yeah I picked up a Refractometer today as well. Up until today i had been using a Hydrometer. I'm not just dismissing it, but fortunately it was just a single head that was only about a half inch across. Only a $20 loss. Where as I was actually trying to decide on the gold hammer or a much larger neon green hammer for $65. So at least I didn't loose much outta my wallet. From what I understand Golden Hammers come from the coastal areas of Australia, and I believe I remember the vendor mentioning that he had just gotten it in 2 weeks prior. So it probably was still in some shock mode from all the traveling. Plus like my LFS owner mentioned, I don't know what the vendors water levels were and their Alk level was. Even acclimating wouldn't be useful if mine and his ALK levels were majorly different.. My LFS owner said that sometimes vendors at conventions tend to have high ALK levels (12.1) to make their corals look and grow fast.

My ALK tested 8.1 today.

I think the next hammer I get will probably be a Neon Green Hammer I've been eyeballing at my LFS where I know them and trust them. Mom and pop store that have been reefing for more than 35 years. they both retired and decided to open up a coral store.

 

[soeminpaing]

Help with newly aquired golden hammer

My guess were injury during transportation causing infection to set in, new tank with unstable parameters and possible salinity issues.

 

[rt67ghy]

I'd leave the skeleton in your tank and after about 4 months you may see baby hammers growing from the edge of the skeleton.

 

[Ohioreef1700]

DEAD from the looks of it

 

[lpsfan]

looks like its a case of being freshly fragged, transportation and maybe tank prams being out of sync.
get your water in check and place out of direct light and flow and you may get lucky.
fingers crossed mate.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

It's gone. I would also recommend leaving the skeleton in the water because new heads can sprout from the sides of the old skeleton. Make sure to get your parameters in line and stable. This is the key to success in reefing

 

[mcfa2403]

If you leave the skeleton do a dip on it first as there is clearly brown jelly on top and you do not want to risk spreading the infection.