Hammer dropping tissue... please help.

[Reefer Addict]

Well, just when everything starts going good in the tank and it looks better than ever, we discover after lights out last night that our big hammer is dropping tissue.
Now we've had bouts with brown jelly in the past, but this is nothing like that... it basically looks like the hammer head made a jump for it, and now it's just dangling there by a few strands of flesh.
It's not decomposed at all, and you can see the filaments underneath it while it sways in the breeze.
This has me perplexed... all my tests come out AOK, and I've been changing water diligently as of late (as a matter of fact I have a batch in the tub waiting to go in this morning).
Something else that is odd, is we also have another matching hammer coral, and all it's 'guts' (for lack of a better word) are coming out through the end of it's polyps... a few of the polyps have squiggly white strands dangling from the ends... could these things be related?
All the other LPS in the tank (torch, frogspawn, bubble, candy cane, brain, etc.) seem to be doing fine, and are opening up as usual... it's just the two hammers that are showing unusual signs.
I thought I remember one time reading that a chemical deficiency in the water can cause head dropping, but it's been a while and I'm kinda fuzzy (gotta love getting old).
Anyway, thanks for any help... attached is a picture of the hammer. You can see the tissue just hanging off the end.

[icebear]

i would really like to hope that that is a reproductive process....

[Buddha]

No it's not. This usually happens when there is to much current on the coral. Kinda like your skin being ripped from your skeleton.

[icebear]

yeouch!

[Reefer Addict]

Hrm...
I don't think that current is the culprit... it's in a spot where there isn't a whole lot of water movement, just enough to make the polyps sway lightly around (it's not getting blasted).
It's had the same current on it for over 6 months now and hasn't shown any signs of this... I also posted this in another forum (gotta cover the bases ), and it's been suggested that what I'm experiencing is 'polyp bailout', which is a stress-induced condition... the thing is I'm still at a loss as to what could be stressing it out... the rest of the tissue seems to be well-anchored in the hammer coral, it's just this one end that decided it wanted to find greener pastures...
Thanks for the feedback though... and keep it coming.

[Alice]

All your water parameters are fine? Salinity and temp good?

[Reefer Addict]

Howdy Alice.
Everything checks out fine (except for Alkalinity which I don't have a test for, but the pH and Ca levels indicate that Alk should be alright.)
Here's the params:

Ammo - 0
NO3 - 0
NO4 - <10
pH - 8.2-8.3
Salinity - 1.025
Ca - 425ppm
Temp: 79-80

It's really perplexing... I've made a few changes to the tank lately, but I figured they were for the better (water changes, removed a large sinularia).
I've removed the dangling tissue and placed it in a maxima shell in a plastic breeder box inside the tank and it still appears to be alive. I noticed the beginning of a brown jelly infection where the remaining tissue was still attached to the colony (probably just opportunistic, not causative), so I blew it out and plan on doing an iodine dip later on to stop it in it's tracks.
The rest of the colony appears to be doing alright... I hope it was just a stress-induced head drop that will stop with the one head... the bare white spot on the skeleton is disheartening though.
Thanks.

[Casey]

Looks like something stressed it out to me it aint the current could be some coral chemical in the water column.

[Pirate]

Question.... you say that you have a batch of water "in the tub" I hope it's not a bathtub. The toxins that you could get there would not be a good thing. Do you add any additives to your water ? If not this might be a good time to do some research on stronium and it's purpose. You can be sure of one thing, if you've had it this long with no problems, something in your water column has changed. Any toxic cleaners or sprays in the room, new paint, windex on the glass ? Think about any changes lately and there may be your answer. Good luck we all know how agravating this kind of thing can be.

[Reefer Addict]

Hiya Pirate,
By 'in the tub' I mean 'in my Rubbermaid 30-gallon tub' that I use for mixing up my salt.
I use RO/DI water... maybe I need to buffer it a bit before topping off my tank daily.
Otherwise, I'm still at a loss... the one head dropped off, is still alive, and the rest of the colony is opened up today like nothing's wrong... very interesting.
Now if I could only get into the mind of my hammer I could probably answer 'why'?
I guess it just got pretty stressed out and decided to drop...
Thanks for all your help... if there's any updates to give I'll gladly check back here.