Need help with Neon Green hammer

misterjimmy

New member
So I need some insight with a hammer I bought a few weeks ago.

Just yesterday i noticed the hammer was somewhat falling apart and I'm not sure if it has to do with the water temp. I think the highest I saw it go up to was about 80.6 degs before I had the apex turn on the chiller.

All the other softies I have in my tank are doing fine so I thought I'd check to see what else could it be.

Thanks in advance if anyone can chime in on this. I've also took a snap shot of what it currently looks like. ( obvious the piece that is hanging)

20140502_132634.jpg
 
I would check your params (both ammonia/nitrate and ca/alk/mg)... the first thing to show that your params are out of whack is usually euphyllia corals (like hammer and frogspawn).

Unless your temp is normally significantly lower than 80-degrees (like constantly at 75-degrees or something), I wouldn't think 80.6 would cause this.

Also, any new fish, flow, etc.?

After going through this checklist, I'm sure you'll figure out the culprit.

Good luck!

Chad
 
Wall hammers are tough to keep compared to branching hammers in my experience. They do not do well with any change, I sided more flow and lost one.
 
Thanks Chad and Scott for your input.

Overall I've checked the basic on my water test kit and everything is at 0. I don't have a test kit for Magnesium,calcium, and ALK.

However I did about a 10 gallon water change so I hope that will help out. Temperature wise I would say it ranges around 77-80 through out the day.

As for Fish I don't have anything at this time. Just found my one and only hermit crab died on me this morning out of its shell.

My water flow is ok but waiting for my new DC pump to arrive next week. I'm running two WP-25s as well.

Other than that, I don't think anything else is out of the ordinary at this point.
 
Inverts like hermits are susceptible to bad water parameters. A dead hermit could be a sign. How old is your test kit?
 
Test kit is fairly new. I just got a little over a month ago and it shows it doesn't expire till 2016.

Salinity is also at 1.026 if that helps
 
I have the same question ;-) if Scott is having trouble with this type of coral, I feel less bad about it. Most of my corals seem to recover well if there is flow right above them. Assuming everything else in your tank is happy, try this method
 
How large of a tank do you have? Two wp25's can move quite a bit of water and it appears that the hammer is attempting to open (not retracted). Could it possibly be getting too much flow? Those wall hammers can be sometimes unpredictable.. I know I've killed a large one before with too much flow. You need to get an alk test kit. One of, if not, the most important tests of all IMO. You're testing your salinity with a refractometer, not a swing arm hydrometer, right?
 
Yes no direct flow. Alk is a must. Are you running some type of P04 remover, GFO? There needs to be some P04.
How big is your tank?
 
I have a 75 gallon tank and flow is right above it. I'll try to take a photo of it later during the day.

I am also running a GFO
 
Take a sample of water to a good LFS and check everything, depending on your coral load water change is not enough to keep alk up in a 75 gallon tank and something you should have a test kit for. Turn off the flow from one of your pumps or turn them voth down low and see if it opens.

Some good ideas above and good luck.
 
Test your P04 if it's really low 0.5 with a real test at LFS. Stop with the GFO.

It really doesn't like a lot of flow. Low flow, just shotting it above it may be to much.
 
wish I saw the last two post sooner but the hammer pretty much melted at this point. I still need to take a sample of my water over to a LFS to get it tested out.
 
Other than that, I don't think anything else is out of the ordinary at this point.

You need to get yourself some test kits for alk cal and mag. Don't skimp on that your just going to lose corals. I've been there done that.

I think your alk is low or swinging .
 
Well looks like I do need to test the water. my Australian Kryptonite sunflower isn't looking good either.

So I guess I need to see if anyone might recommend a LFS that can do a water test. I called the Pasadena tropical fish but they said they do not offer that kind of service. Any other places in the San Gabriel area someone can recommend?


Thanks everyone for your help and input :)
 
Ok I manage to borrow my buddies test kit and it looks like as of last night my PO4 was reading at 8 . Yikes! so this morning I changed out the GFO and carbon and so far within the past 12hrs i did a quick test and it now reads 0.

I noticed my sunflower was starting to stretch out again so its a positive sign. However I do need to clean the sand up a bit and probably change out the GFO again within the next week or two just to keep things up to par.
 
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