Is my hammer coral dead?

[fairl80z]

Drip acclimate corals?

I've never lost a coral to "acclimation" and I basically just cut the bag and toss them in the tank.

I drip acclimate all my corals, inserts and fish . Never lost on to date because of it

 

[Dkuhlmann]

I'm with you Mark, I just float for temp then place them where I want them. Of course I only buy my corals from one place and he does all the Bayer dips etc. If I see any bacterial infections or something not right with corals in my tank, I dip either in Revive or iodine.

 

[rt67ghy]

At most 2-3 hours :/

That would be enough time for it to get BJD. Putting 1 cup of water into bag every 15 minutes would be ok to acclimatize it.

 

[fairl80z]

I'm still thinking the copperband had something to do with it .

 

[Jlentz]

I'm solidly in the CBB did it camp.

I only drip acclimate sticks. Everything else gets floated then add a few cups of tank water before the revive dip.

 

[omykiss001]

Is my hammer coral dead?

One thing you didn't list what is your alkalinity?

Also never seen my CBB touch a coral other than to clean out any feather dusters or other worms from it, but never the coral tissue. Never heard anyone else state this about CBB. Maybe Pygmy angels and other butterflies. Mine only shows interest in the critters living around my hammers. However your Ca and alk levels are more critical for stony corals. Also if you acclimate other inverts why not your corals they are invert animals and can be affected by the same drastic swings in water chemistry as a snail, shrimp, or crab. I find its better to do a long acclimation with a heater. Any time I've done this they tend to open nicely the next day to a few hours later.

Also what do you use to measure your salinity. 1.023 is getting to the low end for stony corals and if your measurement is not right it could be even lower, just a thought especially with swing arm hydrometer or uncalibrated refractometer.

 

[fairl80z]

One thing you didn't list what is your alkalinity?

Also never seen my CBB touch a coral other than to clean out any feather dusters or other worms from it, but never the coral tissue. Never heard anyone else state this about CBB. Maybe Pygmy angels and other butterflies. Mine only shows interest in the critters living around my hammers. However your Ca and alk levels are more critical for stony corals. Also if you acclimate other inverts why not your corals they are invert animals and can be affected by the same drastic swings in water chemistry as a snail, shrimp, or crab. I find its better to do a long acclimation with a heater. Any time I've done this they tend to open nicely the next day to a few hours later.

Also what do you use to measure your salinity. 1.023 is getting to the low end for stony corals and if your measurement is not right it could be even lower, just a thought especially with swing arm hydrometer or uncalibrated refractometer.

Glad to see I'm not the only one that drip acclimated corals [emoji106][emoji106]

 

[dacianb]

I bought 3 euphillya from same tank at shop. Same acclimatization in my tank. Same position (light and flow). After 2 days one wanished like your. The other 2 threaving and growing after 2 months. I even stopped asking myself what was wrong- no idea

 

[Andrewjamessmit]

One thing you didn't list what is your alkalinity?

Also never seen my CBB touch a coral other than to clean out any feather dusters or other worms from it, but never the coral tissue. Never heard anyone else state this about CBB. Maybe Pygmy angels and other butterflies. Mine only shows interest in the critters living around my hammers. However your Ca and alk levels are more critical for stony corals. Also if you acclimate other inverts why not your corals they are invert animals and can be affected by the same drastic swings in water chemistry as a snail, shrimp, or crab. I find its better to do a long acclimation with a heater. Any time I've done this they tend to open nicely the next day to a few hours later.

Also what do you use to measure your salinity. 1.023 is getting to the low end for stony corals and if your measurement is not right it could be even lower, just a thought especially with swing arm hydrometer or uncalibrated refractometer.

refractometer And I read somewhere that the lower of salinity helps when adding new fish or corals so I have lowered it to this over the last couple of water changes in order to add new corals. Also would these be considered stony corals? Also I do not believe I have a test for alkalinity currently is that something I should definitely have

 

[rt67ghy]

Hammer corals are LPS or large polyp stony corals. Monitoring your alk and keeping it within an acceptable range is essential for their survival. If alk falls to 6 dkh or lower stony corals die.

More important at the time of acclimatising is to try to match your tank's salinity to the water in the tank where your coral came from; this helps them to acclimatise better. I wouldn't think that 1.023 would kill your corals but most reefers prefer to keep it at 1.025 - 1.025 sg.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

That's not true about lowering salinity when adding fish or corals. Set your SG to 1.025 or 1.026 and keep it there for a reef environment. Most corals need stable water parameters and by raising and lowering your SG it also affects other parameters like Ca/Mg/KH

 

[Andrewjamessmit]

Hammer corals are LPS or large polyp stony corals. Monitoring your alk and keeping it within an acceptable range is essential for their survival. If alk falls to 6 dkh or lower stony corals die.

More important at the time of acclimatising is to try to match your tank's salinity to the water in the tank where your coral came from; this helps them to acclimatise better. I wouldn't think that 1.023 would kill your corals but most reefers prefer to keep it at 1.025 - 1.025 sg.

Thank you I will raise the salinity and get a test for the alk is there anything else I need to monitor in order to keep lps corals? I have a feeling that maybe be what cause the death of the hammer

 

[The_jaydog]

IMHO I would guess the hammer had issues before it went in the tank. Personally I have never seen or heard of any coral kicking the bucket after 3 days regardless of parameters. I would guess that the CBB definitely finished him off. Did it look nice and healthy when you purchased it? Was the sales man at the LFS trying to push it on you? I hate to be that way but let's be honest, business is all about that money.

Just some food for thought if you try to talk to them.

 

[Andrewjamessmit]

It was grouped in with a bunch of other frags that together looked healthy but to be completely honest I didn't look close at it even after putting it in my tank until it had disappeared

 

[timnem70]

I think I'm gonna see about returning him and my yellow tang and possibly trying some more corals thanks for advice

What do you mean "trying some more corals"? These are living creatures and it doesn't look like you've got a good handle on care of a reef? I find it really difficult to imagine you've no Po4 issues or nitrate inflation as the algae on the glass and lack of useable coralline algae is evident in your Pictures. What test kits are you using? What types of filtration are you running? Alk, Calcium and magnesium are the biggest three elements you need to monitor in order to successfully raise corals.
Im not trying to bust your balls but asking for assistance and not following basic care for the animals you keep (intentional or not) doesn't appear to be adhered to. Please read up before you have any more fatalities. P.s. Xenia will grow anywhere. The LPS and moderate SPS need the above mentioned elements and lighting to be happy and healthy.
Good luck

 

[rt67ghy]

Thank you I will raise the salinity and get a test for the alk is there anything else I need to monitor in order to keep lps corals? I have a feeling that maybe be what cause the death of the hammer

You're welcome.
If you don't have a lot of LPS/SPS corals you don't need to worry about calcium or magnesium since these are used slowly and if you keep up with your water changes, they'll be replenished. Testing nitrates and phosphates is something that you'll need to do once a month so they don't become too high which will happen when you feed your fish/corals. High nitrates and phosphates can end up causing nuisance algae in your tank and eventually killing your corals and fish if not checked.

 

[HammerLover]

Don't throw it yet. My wall hammer lost a small portion due to brown jelly and I left the skeleton at the whole colony. After a month I've seen little baby hammers sprouting. Don't just throw it yet it can still spring back

 

[HammerLover]

What do you mean "trying some more corals"? These are living creatures and it doesn't look like you've got a good handle on care of a reef? I find it really difficult to imagine you've no Po4 issues or nitrate inflation as the algae on the glass and lack of useable coralline algae is evident in your Pictures. What test kits are you using? What types of filtration are you running? Alk, Calcium and magnesium are the biggest three elements you need to monitor in order to successfully raise corals.
Im not trying to bust your balls but asking for assistance and not following basic care for the animals you keep (intentional or not) doesn't appear to be adhered to. Please read up before you have any more fatalities. P.s. Xenia will grow anywhere. The LPS and moderate SPS need the above mentioned elements and lighting to be happy and healthy.
Good luck

Yeah it's true we need to care for the wellfare of our corals. I somehow felt sad and guilty when my galaxea stung the crap out of my torches because of negligence.

Reef keeping isn't really hard you just need to be patient and consistent with levels (except for my nitrates c. OP maybe you need to check all your levels first and how old is your tank. I added corals when my tank is almost a month cycled when everything else is stable except again for a bit of nitrates. I suggest add corals one at a time. Try the very forgiving ones first like softies (mushrooms and ZOA's) and see of they thrive for you. Although my first corals were euphyllias, they never died and I really maintained my levels to keep them going.