I've got this branching hammer frag, 3 heads so far, that used to do great on my frag rack but I moved the rack up. Then it started shriveling up and not extending. I've moved it to the opposite side of my tank and it's been there for the last 4 days now, but it's still like this. The area it's in is lower flow, similar if a bit lower light.
Vol 65 gal w/ 5 gal cheato fuge
Age 8 mths
Sg 1.026
Ph 8.1
Temp 77.3
Alk 9.2
Ca 430 - As of 9/29
Mg 1280 - As of 9/29
PO3 0.08 ppm
NO3 2 ppm
I've been struggling to raise my nitrates, so I've been dosing neonitro and it's been slowly rising, about 0.1-0.2 ppm per day with current dose. I feed frozen daily, so that may have something to do with the phosphate levels.
It's recovered from this before, but I never saw it recede up the skeleton like it's doing this time. Also, tempted to deal with the GHA with a toothbrush, but I don't want to irritate the coral more. I've picked off what was easily accessible, but the rest is right up against the flesh of the coral.
So summary... I've tried so far:
- Move the frag to opposite side of tank, lower flow area, lower light intensity.
- Dipped the frag with Coral Rx, rinsed and returned to the tank.
At this point, my gut tells me that I should just go and scrub off the GHA from the coral and see what happens. Any suggestions as to my "next steps"?
