Neptune Aquatics

Dying hammer coral

rygh

rygh

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After years of it growing like crazy, all my hammer is dying.
A head will be fine, looking totally healthy, then suddenly disintegrate in 1-2 days.
I think I have lost 20+ heads so far. I had 2 huge walls in the corners.
:(

Parameters seem fine.
No ammonia, nitrite.
Nitrate =10, phosphate=undetectable.
Alk=9, Ca=400, need to test Mg.
Salinity = 1.025, temp=78
Phosphate has been dropping recently, due to small nitrate dosing, hence the non-0 nitrate,
but that was well before this started.

Other coral, including a few easy SPS, are doing just fine.

I did big water changes, new carbon, the usual. No help.

I tried dipping a dying head in revive, and no obvious pests came off.

No new fish. A few new corals.

Only thoughts are some specific disease, or some fish suddenly decided it likes them.

Any ideas???

hammer.JPG
 
Sorry to hear about this. Something happened like this to my first hammer coral maybe a month or two after I got it. Could it be brown jelly disease?
 
Usually my guess would be too much flow, as @Geneva said. Have you changed the flow rate or pattern recently?

If not, my next guess would be lack of phosphate. The recent drop to ~ 0 phosphate may be stressing out your LPS.

Those are the first two things that struck me, but I'm curious to hear what others think.
 
@Geneva , @wpeterson
Flow did change a bit, yes. I added another power head. And it was about the same time this started.
However, the "wall" of Hammer went almost all the way to the bottom.
And the flow in the very bottom area is almost zero. Yet those heads died also.
Still, a few weakening and dying could have started something.

@wpeterson
I would be seriously annoyed if I have to start adding phosphates .. :mad:
:)
But who knows...

Might be a combination of things as well.

I put a few surviving heads in the sump/fuge area. We will see how those do.
 
Mark - I also added a new power head and that is when my hammers started dying. Seems like it is difficult for them to come back once they are unhappy....
 
I lost one of the heads on my large torch colony when I upgraded my flow. I was able to make them happier by re-arranging my rock work to provide more shelter for them.

Perhaps you can move some of these colonies to a lower flow location or build a barrier to deflect some of the flow?

Providing enough flow for SPS without hurting the LPS can be tricky :-/
 
Theres also the possibility that corals just die sometimes for no obvious reason.

Kinda sounds like it was the flow change?

Were the tentacles being pushed too hard in a certain direction?
 
It could have been a flow issue on some of the heads, but definitely not all.
Some were always in a low-flow area, and they died also.
So that flow theory only holds if dying heads affected the heads near to them.
Which is possible I guess, if certain bacteria form. Maybe...


Flow ended up more random, which I thought was better.
 
Well, I am pretty sure it is a fish causing all this.

The hammer heads I put in the fuge are doing great.
Recovered nicely, and growing like before.
But I am down to two heads in the main tank. I plan on moving those tonight.

I cannot 100% eliminate flow and light, since those are different between CT and fuge.
But the DT hammer grew in a huge range of flow and light, so very unlikely.
Disease and water quality should be identical.
I do not run filter socks, so bug infestations should be able to travel to the sump.

I really only have two primary suspects:
Bicolor Angel (Centropyge bicolor)
Coral Beauty Angelfish (Centropyge bispinosa)

The Coral Beauty has been around for 8 years now, and stopped growing long ago, so that would be a surprise.
The Bicolor on the other hand is definitely still growing. Getting pretty big now. Perhaps 4.5 inches?
And they do have a reputation for turning into problems.
I originally bought it in hopes of taking care of the Majanos. Failed.

Of course, any fish could be doing this. Even clowns hosting or such.

I might set up a test in the fuge this weekend.
Partition a large region, put the fish and a hammer in there, and see what happens.
 
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