Plating Bi-Color Hammer Head shriveling & tissue dying

[AwwNuts]

Well i can't figure out what the hell is going on with a coral has has been doing amazingly well for a long time.

Recently within less than a month, my Bi-Color Plating Hammer head polyps have started to shrivel starting form one corner and working its way up. The area in which the polyps have shriveled will slowly start to disolve the tissue until their is nothing left but the bone base.

Also i notice on the side where the polyps are okay, the under tissue surrounding its bone structure has started to lift thus exposing the bone.

I hope someone has had a similar experience and is able to shed some light in saving this awesome LPS.

I've heard that even tho the coral has shown signs of it completely dying that i should not remove it from the tank as some have re emerge as the inner core still had some tissue alive.


I haven't notice anything picking on it also no disease looks to be present as the bone and dying tissue are clean.

no brown jelly as some would guess.

Just polyps shriveling and then dissolving and body tissue lifting off its plating bone.

I'm attaching pictures of this corals

The HEALTHY PICS OF THIS CORALS WERE TAKEN ON 11/12/13 which from then to now is less than one month.

I checked parameters and all seem good. i still need to check alk/mag sometime today.

i shouldn't have phospates as i run a phosphate reactor, calcium is about 480. Temp stays at a solid 76-77 deg


My tank is a mix reef system with sps, lps softies and what not. All other corals are doing great except this guy. Lots of coral growth on plating and branching corals.

Healthy pics taken 11/12/13

Coral started to shrivel 11/30 or 11/31

 

[AwwNuts]

looks like my alk dropped to 6 kh. i used to have it around 12 or 14 i believe. i once had it at 9 but this is a first that it had dropped down to 6 kh.

Also the first signs that i notice that something was not right was when i started to notice some of the coraline towards the top of the tank was starting to loose its color. From a nice pink/purple to a light shade of pink and other spots went completely white.

i will cut the exposed bone off and try to clue down some of the flesh. hope once i raise the alk it gets better.

 

[JReefaddict]

Have you tried any dips? I had a hammer wall that was doing the same, and I was told it appeared to be some sort of infection and to dip in lugols. When I dipped in lugols it did appear like the shriveling stopped and the coral started to do better.

 

[AwwNuts]

did your wall hammer head started to loose its flesh on the parts in which had shriveled up.

I had read something about dipping the coral in lugols specially right after i will try to help it heal. That lugols should help.

 

[JReefaddict]

Yes there was a part in the center of the wall and a part on the edge that started to shrivel up and then fall off. The lugols after a couple dips did appear to show noticeable improvement. Sadly I lost the coral a few months later. Not sure if it was related to that or if it had just gotten too bad before I was able to figure out what to do to try and save it

 

[AwwNuts]

Bummer. I dose the tank with alk. I also cut the dead skeleton off and glued the exposed sides. Lets see if the coral will recover. I also had another sps who started to show signs of low alk. Ughhh. Too bad I caught it a bit late.

 

[JReefaddict]

When I was dipping I dipped every 3-4 days or so and I think I may have stopped too soon and should have continued after I saw improvement. Rescuing coral is something I have yet to master