what's going on with my hammer

chrisd · 09-30-2009, 06:30 PM

this hammer has been in the tank for 2 months now with no problems had full polyp extension until today. as you can see the left half is drawn in while the right side is fine. this piece has been in the same spot of the tank and nothing has changed for at least the last month.any ideas?
salinity 1.026
ph 8.2
ammonia 0
nitrate 0
nitrite 0
kh 7
calcium 460
mag 1275
alk 2.2
borate .5

ckusnierek · 09-30-2009, 09:36 PM

Cannot see anything obvious...

A few ideas come to mind...

Does it have brown slime? if so it's a bacterial infection. (but it looks clean to me.)

The idea that seems to be the most evident is that this appears to be a wild collected coral. They usually have a low survival rate regardless of tank conditions. Of all the wild and even maricultured corals I have got close to 75% die within 90 days. NONE of my aquaculture corals have ever died for no reason.

Your Alk. is a lil on the low side. normally not a problem to be at 7 but 8-9 would be better and with your Ca at 460 around 9Dkh would be "balanced" I have seen with the wild corals low alk seems to really affect them'

Now all that being said maybe yours it not wild (but it looks like it is)
Have you checked for parasites? I have also seen Cyano wipe out a wall hammer in less than 24 hours.

chrisd · 10-01-2009, 01:38 PM

not sure if this piece is wild caught i got it from aquatic auction but this seems to make sense. i can not find anything wrong with it but i will try to dip it and see what happens. today is the day i do water changes so that may be why the alk is at 7 usely around 8 or 9, going to start dosing with reef builder to keep the alk a little higher. thanks for the help chris.

AquaMan91 · 10-01-2009, 02:38 PM

lemme ask u this; has anything touched it or have u done a wc recently? my hammer does that anything touches it, startles it, or when i do a water change... like right now my left hammer polyp is deflated while my right one isn't...weird

Fat Tony · 10-01-2009, 02:51 PM

That's commonly called a wall hammer. They do not take well to fragging most of the time. I wouldn't dip it right now or cause it any further stress, just leave it alone and see if it makes it. You could try feeding it as well. Take a coke bottle and cut the bottom off of it, place it over the coral and take some thawed cyclopeze and inject the bottle with it, let it stay that way for 5 mins or so to see of the coral will accent it. If it does, daily feedings for a little while may bring it back.

good luck

chrisd · 10-01-2009, 02:57 PM

no, nothing touched it and i just finshed the water change and used the old tank water to dip the coral in seachem reef dip(iodine) so i guess it's a wait and see now. i hope it turns for the best this it one of my favorite pieces. i do have it near some ricordia but they have been there for two months now and they are several inches away.

chrisd · 10-01-2009, 02:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fat Tony

That's commonly called a wall hammer. They do not take well to fragging most of the time. I wouldn't dip it right now or cause it any further stress, just leave it alone and see if it makes it. You could try feeding it as well. Take a coke bottle and cut the bottom off of it, place it over the coral and take some thawed cyclopeze and inject the bottle with it, let it stay that way for 5 mins or so to see of the coral will accent it. If it does, daily feedings for a little while may bring it back.

good luck

to late already dipped it

chrisd · 10-01-2009, 06:28 PM

just an up date after a water change and dipping the hammer plus bringing my kh up to 9 the hammer seems to be doing better. much more polyp extension man i was worried hopefuly it will be fine, who knows maybe it was in a bad mood today.