High Tide Aquatics

Could use some expert guidance on hammers

G

gfhughes

Supporting Member
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I have some torches and hammers. Originally, I had the hammers higher up than the torches. They were there for about two weeks, and the hammers seemed happy but not the torches. I read torches need more light than hammers, so I swapped the two now my hammers seem unhappy. I measured the light, and the hammers are getting about 75-100 par, the torches 160. I’m curious if maybe it is the flow? I attached two photos and a video right after feeding, which lets you really visualize the flow. The not-fully open hammers are at the bottom left in the pictures, and they have been there for about 1.5 weeks I don’t want to keep moving them around and playing musical chairs, because folks seemed to say that that’s also bad. New\w to the hobby,, and I’ve spent a lot of time reading, but there’s only so much you can learn from a that.

The tank is 75 gallons, i measured the return pump rate at around 300 gallons per hour, and I have two tunze powerheads at about 25% random.

Would appreciate any experience or guidance.

(at the end, you will see the hammer on the left which is almost fully closed, and the other two are probably about half open.)

Ph; swings between 8.1 and 8.4 daily
Alk 8.8, pretty constant (dosing)
Calcium:450 (dosing)
Mag:1400
Salinity 1.026 (I’d like it to be higher, but it is stable)
Nitrate; 4
Phos: 0.14 (I use a very small amount of GFO to keep it stable)
 

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I find a sweet spot for hammers to be 100-160, torches 120 even up to 3-400 (though they need to be slowly raised up to higher pars)

From the picture torches look happy, I only worry about flow in this instance seeing how close they are to the wave maker. You want indirect flow, nothing blowing directly on them. I think you have the hammers to low could use slightly more light and more flow.

To me the torches may likey be getting slightly to much direct flow - fixable by maybe angling the power head up slightly towards surface or raising the whole wave maker up a inch or two.


Why would you want salinity higher than .026 thats the same as natural ocean water? Most reef tanks are ran between .025 and .026

The parameters look good to me. What are you using for lighting?


Lastly is it possible for you to zoom in on the torches and hammers to show their flesh and (it's the white looking skin between the polyps and the flesh band.

There is no better way to tell the health of a hammer or torch than to examine that flesh band..big band widening over time happy coral. Very thin band means and shrinking over time means unhappy and slowly wasting away.

Screenshot_20260320_212656_Google.jpg


Examine pictures above. It shows a clear difference in what I was referring to.

You see a clear difference in the flesh bands. Something to always Examine when buying them.
 
Thanks for the detailed response.

I mistakenly said I want the salinity higher, I want nitrates higher, I just tested again and they’re down to 1.

The lights are Maxspec MJ-L290, at 37% drawing a total of 74watts combined. And I have a cheap Amazon par meter, which I think is worse than no par meter.

The torches are close to the wave maker for sure! but it sort of blows past them, if I turn off that wave maker, it actually has very little impact on the torches. In the video they are flowing almost towards the wave maker I’ll try moving it a few inches left and up and see how that does.

if the hammers were not getting enough light, would they be opening up more instead os less? Them being semi-closed is why I thought the issue could be too much flow.

I added a photo from the side of the tank showing the power head isn’t pointing directly directly at them, and the torches which have a nice flesh band, and the hammers which do not (and I have seen them open when they were higher). The cloudy water is from feeding.

I suppose all signs point to the torches wanting to be higher.

I could also increase the light output, but my Goni (rightmost in the first picture of the thread) and Dunkin both seem happy, including a large Goni I have on the sand bed not pictured.
 

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I am not sure if flow is the issue but you could turn down your return pump a bit and play around with the direction of the Tunzes, creating more indirect flow.

My Hammers and Torches get around 280 PAR, and rather strong but indirect flow from the gyres. I am sure they would feel even better with less, but the pictures shows how they look like.

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I am a water guy so I always look at the water first. I think having slightly higher nitrate (higher than 1 mg/L) and lower alkalinity (7.5 - 8 dkH) could be better. High alk with low nutrients stresses corals but you have relatively elevated phosphate so it might not be an issue in your case, but worth trying.

Raising nitrates only without raising phosphates is a bit tricky though, except if you dose some ammonia, which could make sense. There should be some tips on how to do this here somewhere. Only a bit though, not too much.

Looks like there are no fish in this tank? Is this true?

Which salt are you using?
 
That is gorgeous!!

Consensus sounds like they want more than 100 pat,soup they will go!

I sure wish there was a device like a wind sock to give a measurement of flow.

Do you aim for 10ppm nitrate? I may very slowly try brightwell’s NeoNitroto raise nitrates, as I can always use more gfo to lower phosphates. I just boosted my cuc, so hopefully reducing algae will also help me to raise nitrates.

I’m using Tropic Marin pro, for the salt and do have fish, they just like to hide. I have a baby yellow tang (with a plan to re-home when he gets bigger) 2 clowns, a royal gramma, 2 gobies, and a yellow assessor.
 
gfhughes said:
That is gorgeous!!

Consensus sounds like they want more than 100 pat,soup they will go!

I sure wish there was a device like a wind sock to give a measurement of flow.

Do you aim for 10ppm nitrate? I may very slowly try brightwell’s NeoNitroto raise nitrates, as I can always use more gfo to lower phosphates. I just boosted my cuc, so hopefully reducing algae will also help me to raise nitrates.

I’m using Tropic Marin pro, for the salt and do have fish, they just like to hide. I have a baby yellow tang (with a plan to re-home when he gets bigger) 2 clowns, a royal gramma, 2 gobies, and a yellow assessor.
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Lowering nitrate is a bit of a pain so do not raise it too much. Around 5 should be enough. I am not a fan of neonitro, hence my suggestion to use ammonia. You could also buy Fauna Marin Coral Wow, which is pretty much ammonia with some other stuff. Salt is good so traces should be fine for now at least.
 
My gigantic hammer thrives with 250-300 par, medium to high indirect flow, 10 nitrates, and .4 ppm phosphates (high). It is not as fluffy if ALK is close to 9, so that is why I maintain 7-8 DKH.

From my experience, large colonies are more tolerant to high flow. I have my gyres at 100% and it doesn't get bothered. In the picture, there’s even a tunze pump right on top of it. For small frags, you should go for low-medium flow.

It is best to assess your hammer during peak lighting periods. If you have a ramp up/ down schedule, it will be more closed up during those periods.

I also utilize ammonium bicarbonate to maintain my nitrates. I had nitrates close to 0-3 and it looked unhealthy.

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Also not a great practice to change things to make one coral happy switching light out put for one coral effects everything. One happy and piases off everything else.

For single corals adjusting placement is often the prefered option. You may not notice a difference from moving them for a week or two. It's not a over night response unless the placement involves and extreme difference in conditions.

Consider becoming a supporting member. The club has par meters available that are loaned out to our supporting members.

These are legitimate high grade par meters not the cheaper ones that are barely better than not having one as you put it.
 
gfhughes said:
@Alexander1312 i use 20ml GFO mixed with carbon in a reactor.

@Royce023 that hammer looks phenomenal.

I dose calcium, alk, and tropic Marin - Part C which should help with the trace elements.

Sounds like more light, ramp down my alk to hold at 8, and bring up nitrates a bit.

Thanks for the input!
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This sounds like a good plan and should also make the other corals happy as most would not like higher alk and lower nutrients and too much flow.

However, your goni might not like PAR above 200 PAR. These are always tricky to keep in a mixed reef, as their lower light expectations can sometimes be tricky to meet. So testing this slowly and limiting it to 180 PAR should be your plan.

And agree with Michael on the point of getting a good PAR meter, as this is essential to get right.
 
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