Hammer head detached in water column

[bBurn18]

Hello today I saw a small hammer polyp head tumbling across the sand bed. Then I saw where the head was originally on the hammer.

I've had the hammer for over a year and it's grown 4 new heads. Flow has not changed in many months. Par is 20% lower recently due to dino strategy.

0.30 PO4
25 ppm NO3
1.026 salinity
26 celsius
9.4 alk
400 calcium

Last month ICP revealed good levels other than low iodine and zinc. Sent off for another last week.

I have just been getting over dinoflagellates. Been a very long process but I think they are gone or close to being gone.

Have very small red planaria who's numbers are likely the highest they've ever been. They don't physically bother corals and didn't want to do a treatment during dinos.

Lost a handful of sps over the last few months from what I think was the dino toxins. Maybe it's the planaria toxins?

Never had any issue with the hammer.

Attached pics and a FTS from today

 

[VintageReefer]

It’s called polyp bail out and they do it when there is a condition or annoyance that is so bad, they abandon the skeleton in search of a new area or to escape. It’s a last ditch effort as this normally results in death.

 

[bBurn18]

Thanks for the response. Do you know if this could be caused by dino toxins?

I saw this sponge growing on the base of the hammer. Do you know anything about this type?

 

[VintageReefer]

Thanks for the response. Do you know if this could be caused by dino toxins?

I saw this sponge growing on the base of the hammer. Do you know anything about this type?

Unfortunately (or fortunately) I don’t think I’ve ever had Dino’s, so I don’t know if they could cause it.

The sponge is nice looking, I don’t think they are typically harmful

Things I’ve seen cause this are too much flow, and shipping stress

 

[bBurn18]

Thanks. It's pretty frustrating to hear this bail out is due to stress. Felt like I was moving in the right direction over the last few months but this invisible toxin is clearly causing a lot of stress on the coral.

I run chemipure blue which has activated carbon. I was expecting that to pull out the toxins.

Should I be running more carbon to try to pull out more?