one branch of my hammer coral dieing

[jennmac415]

I have had this hammer for 2 years. It was actually my first LPS coral in 2004. It started out with just 4 little branches. Over time they have all split and now it has about 12-15 or so...for the last few days one of the branches right in the middle of the whole coral has been appearing to try to split...the skeleton actually started to become 2 different branches... the polyps of this branch/branches stayed retracted for about the last 3 days, but the last time one of the branches split it did this so I did not worry. Tonight, I was turkey basting my rocks and sortof went by the hammer and some of the polyps of this branch that has been splitting just flew off leaving the skeleton exposed as if they were not even attached anymore!!! Now, I believe it is dieing and not just splitting. What would cause just one branch to die... can splitting sometimes cause it to die. The rest of the hammer looks perfect, will this start to effect the rest of it? Should I cut this dieing branch off or just leave it,...it is right in the middle and doesn't look very pleasing now.

I am so sad... this coral came all the way from Oregon when we moved a year ago. Vince... VMD, actually let me ship it to him when we were moving and he kept it for me for about a month until I got my tank running again.

Any ideas or tips?

Thanks!

[Loverotties]

Cut it off so it doesn't effect the rest!

[tims]

it is possible that it is Dying off, but sounds more like like it needs a bit more room. have you thought about cutting it up a bit?

[jennmac415]

Well it looks like I am off to buy a dremel... I just read the thread about fragging a hammer (what perfect timing) it seems pretty easy except for the part that I have NEVER used a dremel and cutting a coral freaks me out!! Also, since this head is right in the middle of the hammer, should I just go ahead and make it intgo 2 hammers so I don't have this big gap in the middle of the hammer... that way it might be easier to cut off the dead one. HELP!!!!!!!! How long can it be out of the water? And won't it start sliming all over the place???? Vince... where are you??

[combiemaster]

yeah same thing happen to me i had 11 heads touching each other and i lost 4 of them because of that. After i broke them off into 3 pcs now they are all happy