Why? Wall Hammer disappearing...

[curtcherry]

I had a flame angel in the DT for a couple of weeks and I assumed when I returned home last weekend it had taken more than its fair share out of my wall hammer. The round portion on the right was gone. It appears the connection between the right which is gone and the middle is still receding. Could something else be eating it at night? Flame angel is no longer in the tank.

I have a brittle star that has gone after soft corals when it was hungry...
In the tank are a pair of clowns, christmas wrasse, hermit crabs, emerald crabs, snails and cleaner shrimp.

Help please!

 

[Flippers4pups]

Need your water parameters.

 

[curtcherry]

78 degrees. 0 0 0. dkh 7 and steady, PO4 0.5 and has been coming down with GFO... Had high PO4 around 2.0 over a month ago. Ca - 500. Ph 8 and steady. salinity 1.025. I don't know much about hammers as I am new to the hobby. However, this coral has looked great until last weekend and all of a sudden parts disappeared.

 

[curtcherry]

Have had the hammer for about 6 weeks.

 

[curtcherry]

Could my acan been to close about 4 or 5 inches away?

 

[curtcherry]

Just shined a flash light on it and I see a lot of little tiny bugs crawling around the part that has disappeared. Do I have some hitchhikers?

 

[shadowmonster]

You might want to look into Brown Jelly Disease/Syndrome. Also, for whatever reason wall Hammers just don't have the best survivability rate right now. The link below might help.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/10/corals