mystery solve by clues

S

spamreefnew

New member
something is killing my hammer coral and ONLY my hammer coral and at nite ONLY.

This has happened every nite for the last two weeks.

NOTHING new has been added to the aquarium in months.(except for 5 mangroves)

The ph remains stable 24 hours a day 7 days a week at 8.3

the CA is 440 ppm

the ALK is 9 dkh

the MAG is 1360

the temp is 79-80

The hammer starts to recover during the day,but wakes up worse each morning.

this is happening to ALL 50 heads at once

ALL other corals are looking good and growing

shrimp are all fine(not copper)

nems and fish are all fine

coraline growing

same LED fixture for 2 years

any ideas?
 
Please describe what is happening to the coral.

"The hammer starts to recover during the day,but wakes up worse each morning "

What do you mean by that?


Not to state the obvious, but you know they tend to close up at night.

Are you seeing tissue reccedding? Flesh detaching from skeleton?
 
stock: kenya tree,paylays,zoanthids,long tent nem,gsp,toadstool leather,button polyps,shrimp,snails,3 black&white clowns,2 blue damsels,coral beauty,3 stripe damsel,blue stripe damsel,and engineer goby. cherry shrimp,mysis shrimp,mangroves,,,and that's about it.
symptoms:

during the day the coral starts to open ,about half of the tentacles on each head will expand. The coral will start to close like normal at nite.The coral will look like a normal closed hammer until I go to bed around midnight. Early in the morning I will notice that the heads closed SO MUCH that all you can see is bare bone on most heads. The coral will start to re-open in morning but not ALL heads will re-open because some are missing!

I want to think it is my coral beauty eating them,,but he would have to realy be going to town to consume that much flesh in such a short time,,and I am not seeing him do any more than an nip at the base every few hours.
 
Do you run carbon in a fluidized bed filter? How often is it changed? My guess would be there is a little chemical warfare going on, and the carbon may help. Coral Beauty's can nip at them, but they wouldn't do it at night, they hide. Unless your mysis shrimp is really a peppermint, they isn't anything on that list that stands out as a nocturnal feeder.
 
spamreefnew said:
stock: kenya tree,paylays,zoanthids,long tent nem,gsp,toadstool leather,button polyps,shrimp,snails,3 black&white clowns,2 blue damsels,coral beauty,3 stripe damsel,blue stripe damsel,and engineer goby. cherry shrimp,mysis shrimp,mangroves,,,and that's about it.
symptoms:

.
Click to expand...

Do the clowns hang out in the coral?
 
I have had the same corals together for years without carbon or issues

the clowns do not hang out in it,,they used to before I got the nem without issue

keep em coming ! :)
 
spamreefnew said:
just as a side note,the coral is looking a a little better today,,well what's left of it,,that is :(
Click to expand...

hello Spameree.

Could you please provide us with pictures and please emphasize more about "whats left of it" Hammer heads are very hardy, mine sometimes close up at night to the extent i can see their bones.

Please try to describe the situation with more details or atleast a picture, it could be brown jelly disease, it could be due to strong flow etc...

try to relocate it to an area with low flow.

Regards,
Omar
 
spamreefnew said:
I have had the same corals together for years without carbon or issues
Click to expand...

Just because it's been like this for years, as leathers get larger, they begin to send chemicals into the water to fight off other corals so they can keep growing. Carbon helps remove it. I don't know if there's really any way to test for it, but nothing showed up in my tank when it started in my tank. I only know the one thing that helped was to get carbon running again and water changes.
 
it is not brown jelly,I have had that before on a torch coral(nasty stuff btw). I will try to get a pic soon. The flow is low and is unchanged. I guess some carbon or purigen cant hurt. I do find it strange how tonight it is looking better (9:20pm) without me doing anything. I lost about 25 of the 50 heads. They did not fall off or melt away,,they just fully retracted over nite to the point that they vanish,,,sometimes in the morning there is still a tiny point of green flesh way down in the center of the skull witch will kind of just shrink all day long until gone. I have had a reef for a long time now and I have seen things like chemical warfare,sweepers,and coral eating creatures,, this is different. strange......
 
spamreefnew said:
it is not brown jelly,I have had that before on a torch coral(nasty stuff btw). I will try to get a pic soon. The flow is low and is unchanged. I guess some carbon or purigen cant hurt. I do find it strange how tonight it is looking better (9:20pm) without me doing anything. I lost about 25 of the 50 heads. They did not fall off or melt away,,they just fully retracted over nite to the point that they vanish,,,sometimes in the morning there is still a tiny point of green flesh way down in the center of the skull witch will kind of just shrink all day long until gone. I have had a reef for a long time now and I have seen things like chemical warfare,sweepers,and coral eating creatures,, this is different. strange......
Click to expand...

Ouch.....that must be one Huge hammer head!! iam sorry to hear that.
There is no harm to relocate it, and I am positive adding carbon and chemipure will help your aquarium to get rid of chemicals that you can't test for.
Best of luck I hope everything goes well for ya :)
 
Pics would be very usefull.

So what you are saying is that the flesh seems to shrivel up and disappear overnight.? Leaving a bare white skeleton?
 
Run carbon, as a test: if you see it improved, that might indicate biological warfare.
At night, many lps expand and do some territory-claiming. They have about a 6" reach, a few longer than that, and a big hammer can channel a lot of expansion into one little tendril. If it's reaching out and annoying the toadstool or other softies, that could be your answer. You may need to frag something back and get them out of contact. Keeping stonies and softies in the same tank is a challenge, and what we call 'leather wars' don't make it easier.
I run mostly euphyllias with the params in my sig.
 
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