Hammer not doing well

[drakebuffie]

This guy did fine for months. I was out of town with kids feeding tank for 2 weeks. Came back and my Pandora's box zoa was basically gone and my hammer looked like the attached pic. I have another zoa doing great and candy canes growing like a weed and 2 different mintiporia doing just fine. Devil's hand leather and elephant ear doing fine. Not quite sure what happened. Salinity is 1.025
ALK 9.5 dkh
Ph 7.8
Trates read zero....feeding more to get this up
Cal 509

Hanna checkers....phosphate checker coming in a few days.

All fish are doing fine. And most of my corals look great....except for those 2

It's still alive as I can see the polops receded back in there but I don't think it's long for this world.

Any ideas?

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Hard to say. How close is the hammer to the leathers?

 

[drakebuffie]

Hard to say. How close is the hammer to the leathers?

Foot roughly

 

[EeyoreIsMySpiritAnimal]

Any pics of the hammer when it was doing well? Specifically, ones where you can see the skeleton... If the flesh was already receding, this may just be a continuation of a problem from longer than 2 weeks.

 

[drakebuffie]

Pic from a while back

 

[Tcook]

Any pics of the hammer when it was doing well? Specifically, ones where you can see the skeleton... If the flesh was already receding, this may just be a continuation of a problem from longer than 2 weeks.

I agree. Your nitrates are zero. Maybe your PO4 as well. Was this hammer slowly starving? The before pic doesn't show a lot of extention. How old is the tank?

 

[drakebuffie]

I fed it some brine shrimp tonight. Took a pipet and filled it with a little brine and **** it down into the skeleton where I could see the little polops. This is the most I have seen it open in weeks

 

[drakebuffie]

I agree. Your nitrates are zero. Maybe your PO4 as well. Was this hammer slowly starving? The before pic doesn't show a lot of extention. How old is the tank?

Tank is 11 months old

 

[Tcook]

Tank is 11 months old

They like dirty water and nitrate zero is not good. Can you take some water to the lfs tomorrow to check the PO4 and confirm the nitrate? Especially if using API to test. Also, how do you export nutrients besides water change? Skimmer? Chaeto? You may need to dose some nutrients.

 

[drakebuffie]

I agree. Your nitrates are zero. Maybe your PO4 as well. Was this hammer slowly starving? The before pic doesn't show a lot of extention. How old is the tank?

My candy cane started out with 2 heads. Put in tank at same time. This is what it looks like now with 9 heads.

They like dirty water and nitrate zero is not good. Can you take some water to the lfs tomorrow to check the PO4 and confirm the nitrate? Especially if using API to test. Also, how do you export nutrients besides water change? Skimmer? Chaeto? You may need to dose some nutrients.

Skimmer. I have adjusted to biweekly 5 gal water changes and removed a bunch of GHA and started feeding more. I use Hanna checkers which was confirmed by LFS api test. Api not accurate but my Hanna read the same as api....basically zero.

I am figuring it is lack of nutrients. I just don't get why the candy cane and others are doing so well while another shrivels up.

Dosing nutrients....what do u mean by that? I am feeding more and just tonight spot fed all the corals. Can't really spot feed a monti. I posted pic of what the hammer looked like after feeding. First time I have seen polops in weeks

 

[Tcook]

Euphyllia and trachyphyllia have always been sensitive to low nutrients in my tanks. I had to dose Brightwell NeoPhos for the first 6-8 months of my tank to get the PO4 up to 0.03. Part of this is likely due to dry rock and sand sucking up PO4.

 

[drakebuffie]

Last night while watching 1883 I spot fed the corals with just regular frozen fish food. When I got up this morning my hammer was more open than I have seen it in weeks.

I believe he was starving. Hopefully I keep spot feeding him every few days and get my nutrients a little higher and he will start doing as well as my candy cane.

 

[Dave1993]

Last night while watching 1883 I spot fed the corals with just regular frozen fish food. When I got up this morning my hammer was more open than I have seen it in weeks.

I believe he was starving. Hopefully I keep spot feeding him every few days and get my nutrients a little higher and he will start doing as well as my candy cane.

dose nitrate buy it in a bottle add it too the tank

 

[drakebuffie]

UPDATE

I got a new hammer frag from my brother. The file fish is 100% the culprit. He is eating the hammer and also probably ate my 2 zoas. Dont know why he didnt eat the third but he is 100% what happened to my hammer frag because he is eating the new one already. I guess I just cant keep certain things because I like that fish.