Hammer Coral about to die?

[cgr124]

Hello, I have a new cycled tank about 3 months old stocked with one neon goby, 8 sexy shrimp, 3 snails and a hermit crab. For corals I have 2 Xenia 1 GSP, 1 mushroom, and a new Hammer coral frag. Tank is a 5.5 gallon Fluval evo with a voyager wavemaker and using pinky floss, matrix rocks, and chemi pure blue with a small piece of poly filter in the last media chamber (intank) for filtration. The hammer in the pic is about 2 weeks old and just recently has been retracted to where I can see the skeleton. Was fine the first few days but has been like this for a few days almost a week. All other corals and fish seem to be doing well. I can’t figure out if this is normal or if the hammer is about to die off. I did a water change 2 days ago and still not helping. Is this normal? Any suggestions are welcomed. Not sure if I need to change the setup.

salinity 1.027
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 10
PH 8.0
Temp 79

Thanks

 

[Sharkbait19]

It definitely seems dangerously receded. Do you have tests for magnesium and calcium? LPS corals can do poorly if these levels are not where they should be. Your tank may also be a little too new for a euphyllia. I tried a torch coral early on and it almost died (thankfully it didn't, but I believe I was mostly lucky). Additionally, I find hammers to be the most sensitive. If params are not 100% good, they can potentially die. Your params seem okay, though, although LPS corals do like a little more nitrates. What lighting/flow is it in? Have you tried moving it?

 

[NeonRabbit221B]

As sharkbait mentioned your take might just be too new. What lighting do you have? They like fairly low to moderate flow and my issues with them in the past have been related to having too high of flow.

 

[Sharkbait19]

I lost a hammer coral once because it was in too high lighting, so a little shade might also help.

 

[cgr124]

Thanks all for the replies. It is a new tank and my lighting is just the stock Evo V lighting which isn’t very powerful. The frag is low in the tank as well. I do have a wave maker on the opposite side of the tank so maybe it doesn’t like the flow. I have Kent nano A/B which has some nutrients but I was only dosing with water changes weekly. I’ll try daily dosing and see if that helps. Appreciate the replies.