My hammer needs some help......BAD!!!!!

[reefkeeperfrodo]

I've had this hammer for over a year, and its become a part of the family. It was my first lps, and its tripled in size since I got it. Over the last couple of weeks my wall hammer has started going south. Its a wall hamer about a foot long, and in the middle section, the fleshy polyps have let go of the skeliton, but still come out, get big, and feed. I've never had this thing propogate, and i dont know what that looks like, so it could be that, idk.
My water is pretty good, 15-20ppm nitrate, 550 mg/l calcium, 9 dkh, no ammonia or nitrite. Not to mention it gets about 12-14 hours of PC lighting a day. Help me please, for the sake of my baby.

 

[FOSELONE]

why dont you frag it if its that big ???

 

[reefkeeperfrodo]

Its a wall hammer, I've always been told you cant frag those.

 

[mikekman]

Nearly anything can be fragged!

Has anything significant happened in the last couple of weeks? High temperatures, salinity, sudden spike in ammonia, etc??? Maybe your bulbs need some changing?

Lets see some pictures too!

How are the rest of your corals?

 

[reefkeeperfrodo]

The only thing that happened was moving the tank. My nitrates spiked to about forty then settled down after a few days. The rest of my corals are all doing great. I had a buddy come over last night and tell me it was polyp bail out. I've never heard of this before, can anyone shed some light? My bulbs were replaced in febuary when I bought the fixture used. And sadly, I dont have a digital camera, and can't budget one in right now, sorry.

 

[chrisstie]

You might check out this past issue of RK magazine. In it they discuss how to frag an elegance which will have a large skeleton much like your hammer when closed up.

You may be able to take some tips from there if you want to take the plunge and try to prune out your coral

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-03/ac_sp/feature/index.php