Very sick hammer -- will it recover? Please advise

[ACBlinky]

I bought a very damaged wall hammer yesterday afternoon, not realizing quite how far gone it was until I got it home. The smell was unreal -- just like a rotting turbo snail, it was awful. I cleaned it up as best I could, but there's still quite a bit of rot and slime. Tissue in the middle is completely gone, one end may not make it, but the other looks like it's rallying. I'm not sure whether to leave it alone, or frag through the healthy tissue to remove all traces of rot -- I'm worried about stressing it further, but also worried the rot will just continue on through the still healthy areas of tissue.

The flesh barely extends to the sides of the wall -- I know it should be about 1" down; this guy is pretty sick, and seems emaciated to me. I tried offering food last night and though it did open two mouths, it slimed up a bit and rejected the food it did catch (blender mush).

He's on the bottom of the tank, in low flow, slightly shaded. I posted in the Reef Discussion forum last night and got one reply, advising it was best to just leave him be. So far this is what I'm doing, but I don't want to lose this beautiful coral so I'm posting here as well.

Any thoughts or suggestions from the LPS crew? Thank you so much

Edit --> Here's a pic while the lights are off. I can still see some rotting tissue next to the healthy tissue on the right; that's my primary worry at this point.

 

[ACBlinky]

Well, after watching the fish and a hermit picking on the poor thing, I decided to move the hammer into the refugium. When I removed it from the tank, the smell was unbelievable. I elected to frag the healthy (and I use the term lightly) end and chuck the rest. We'll see what happens -- at least now it's in low flow, isolated from fish and crabs, so maybe there's a chance it can feed in peace.

 

[sslak]

If it smelled you were probably right to toss it.

My hammer was in the tank when my heater thermostat failed..temp got up to 92F and I thought for sure the hammer was cooked. It is slowly coming back, so I think they're pretty tough cookies.

 

[ACBlinky]

That's good to hear, maybe there's hope for my little guy yet! The polyps are inflating and extending a bit now, but it's still not taking food. I'll keep trying to feed it, and cross my fingers

 

[Fish'InMN]

Keep the flesh out of the sand IME. For whatever reason that seems to be a common source of irritation and would certainly not help an already injured anchora.

 

[ACBlinky]

Done and done. It's in the fuge now, set on top of a pile of rubble, polyps up. There's no sand in this portion of the fuge at all, just a container of rubble, the hammer, and low-flowing water. The back section is full of chaeto, but the front is the frag storage area -- it just happens to be fragless at this point