Unhappy frog spawn and hammer; any ideas why?

[benjc]

I have a frogspawn that has been highly retracted for 2 months now and a branching hammer that has been slowly retracting for 2-3 weeks. Strangely enough, in the same area as these two corals, I have another hammer that is doing great. For both unhappy corals, things seemed to progress slowly, with one head after another starting to shrink. I've got acans, a war coral, duncans, blastos, zoas, and softies that all seem happy.

My parameters are: temp: 78, pH 8.0, Alk 8.9, Ca 410, Mg 1360, nitrate <1, nitrite/ammonia 0, phosphate unknown. I run carbon and gfo (half the recommended amount of each) and a 25W UV at approximately 100 gph, tank is lightly/moderately stocked, both corals in question are 2/3 way down under reefbreeder LEDs (running 11 hour light cycle with 2.5 hours max lighting at 40%blue 30%white/red/green). Judging by rate of algae growth, I don't seem to have a big phosphate issue.

Any suggestions?

 

[Sk8r]

Dunno, but your cal is 10 pts low. Shorten your lights an hour, and maybe scatter some ground dry krill or mysis in the tank every couple of days. I'm suspecting a softie is spitting at it. Try changng out your carbon, in case it's saturated. Move the euphyllias (hammer/frog) to the upstream side of the whole arrangement so they get the just-cleaned water. All that occurs to me.

 

[benjc]

Thanks for the input; carbon is changed every 2-3 week's. I've been spot feeding reef chili 2-3 times a week; I'll take a break from feeding for a couple weeks and see if that helps.

 

[moatdaddy]

how about they are growing new heads?

 

[jwoyshnar]

My guess is your water is too stripped of nutrients.

 

[Terrance]

Thanks for the input; carbon is changed every 2-3 week's. I've been spot feeding reef chili 2-3 times a week; I'll take a break from feeding for a couple weeks and see if that helps.

Reef chili is good and I have the same thing. I would suggest feeding meaty food, like mysis. I have been giving raw shrimp and scallop once or twice weekly. Euphyllias love meat.

 

[benjc]

The frogspawn certainly doesn't seem to be growing a new head; I wouldn't bet the hammer is right now either. I'll stop the spot feeding for a couple weeks; maybe it was irritating them and instead broadcast feed more reef chili and some cyclopese...trying to get them some more meaty items and dirty up the water a bit. Thanks again to everyone for the input.