I accidentally smacked my hammer coral and it is not looking well.

[moretor1]

My hammer was doing really good for the first few weeks, until one day I was trying to catch a fish and smacked the top of it with the back of my hand.

I hit it fairly hard and it fell off the rock. It's such a tiny frag I'm scared it may already be dead or on its way.

I will be picking up some coral ReVive in the morning but the LFS is closed atm. I tried to spot feed it a little reef roids a few days ago (I'm convinced the hammer just doesn't like them)
The next day it had a brown string of goo blowing off and was covered in a thin brown layer of goo. It did this last time I fed reef roids but when I went to go blow it away with a pipette,
the skeleton was exposed underneath And it was looking very bleached.

My phos, nitrate, and calcium are normal and I topped off today because I noticed my Salinity was a bit high.

I haven't seen any of the polyps come off yet, even when blowing on it directly.

I'm thinking about doing a peroxide dip right now incase it's a bacterial infection or algae buildup. But I fear that may just worsen the condition of the hammer

Should I wait to get an actual dip and maybe some iodine?

 

[The_Paradox]

Personally I would leave it alone. What you described should not kill it if it was previously healthy and was not buried a long time in the sand.

 

[cutlass5268]

My hammer was doing really good for the first few weeks, until one day I was trying to catch a fish and smacked the top of it with the back of my hand.

I hit it fairly hard and it fell off the rock. It's such a tiny frag I'm scared it may already be dead or on its way.

I will be picking up some coral ReVive in the morning but the LFS is closed atm. I tried to spot feed it a little reef roids a few days ago (I'm convinced the hammer just doesn't like them)
The next day it had a brown string of goo blowing off and was covered in a thin brown layer of goo. It did this last time I fed reef roids but when I went to go blow it away with a pipette,
the skeleton was exposed underneath And it was looking very bleached.

My phos, nitrate, and calcium are normal and I topped off today because I noticed my Salinity was a bit high.

I haven't seen any of the polyps come off yet, even when blowing on it directly.

I'm thinking about doing a peroxide dip right now incase it's a bacterial infection or algae buildup. But I fear that may just worsen the condition of the hammer

Should I wait to get an actual dip and maybe some iodine?

I’m no professional, but I’d leave it alone. I dropped mine about 4 feet onto the concrete, and that sheared off more than half the polyps. I figured it was dead for sure, but after a couple of days it was coming back and looking pretty good. That was a couple weeks ago and he’s grown a lot since then.
Also, I’ve been feeding mine reef energy plus since then, which really seems to have helped. It’s not responsive to it like my bta’s are, but it seems to give it more color and helped it perk back up after I man handled it
Could be all in my head too though

 

[Brian1f1]

Exactly as they said OP. You are killing it with love. So long as your parameters are good and stable and the flow isn’t bashing it leave it be.

Also, not all hammers seem to take food well. You are stressing it with it. Let it be for now.

 

[FishPham]

dont touch it and dont dip it, it's only gonna make things worse. leave it be. i've done much worse with my hammers/torches and as long as you don't stress it anymore, it'll be fine.

 

[moretor1]

thanks for the advice everyone

i was hoping it wasnt a huge alarm and i'm happy i decided against the peroxide dip

might pick up some revive and iodine anyways. i've heard dosing iodine helps quite a bit but i gotta do more research

 

[Miami Reef]

i've heard dosing iodine helps quite a bit but i gotta do more research

Not true. There is no evidence of a benefit to dosing iodine.

Keep things simple. Corals can be very resilient if you give them a chance. Don’t dip nor dose anything that isn’t absolutely needed. Simple is better.

 

[Goaway]

I've dropped my hammer on the floor. Busted into several frags. One head died from splitting into 2. As others said. Let it be.
After the drop. I just planted them and let them be. Urchin said other wise.. Different story.

And a year later

Another few under my rainbow hammer.

 

[Js.Aqua.Project]

Have you told it you're sorry?

Sometimes our hobby has to use a "dead or better" mentality. You do absolutely everything you can to keep everything stable and fish and corals happy, but in the end they are all either dead or they are better.

Keep you water quality good and just be patient.

 

[FishPham]

thanks for the advice everyone

i was hoping it wasnt a huge alarm and i'm happy i decided against the peroxide dip

might pick up some revive and iodine anyways. i've heard dosing iodine helps quite a bit but i gotta do more research

i made a vertical split on my banana torch taking it off the frag plug last week. other than gluing it back together, i stuck it back in the tank and left it alone. dipping it can help, but if it was healthy before, it will bounce back. dont overreact when it comes to these things and you'll come out alright.

sorry pictures are kinda crap due to feeding time

 

[Pistondog]

I'll be the pessimist, youll find out in the morning if im correct, i hope not.
The only time ive had bjd is from mechanical damage to a euphyllia.

 

[moretor1]

I'll be the pessimist, youll find out in the morning if im correct, i hope not.
The only time ive had bjd is from mechanical damage to a euphyllia.

I picked it up to do a smell test and it smelled perfectly fine.
I could see the mouth better when it was closer towards the top and the retracted polyps seemed ok

 

[vetteguy53081]

My hammer was doing really good for the first few weeks, until one day I was trying to catch a fish and smacked the top of it with the back of my hand.

I hit it fairly hard and it fell off the rock. It's such a tiny frag I'm scared it may already be dead or on its way.

I will be picking up some coral ReVive in the morning but the LFS is closed atm. I tried to spot feed it a little reef roids a few days ago (I'm convinced the hammer just doesn't like them)
The next day it had a brown string of goo blowing off and was covered in a thin brown layer of goo. It did this last time I fed reef roids but when I went to go blow it away with a pipette,
the skeleton was exposed underneath And it was looking very bleached.

My phos, nitrate, and calcium are normal and I topped off today because I noticed my Salinity was a bit high.

I haven't seen any of the polyps come off yet, even when blowing on it directly.

I'm thinking about doing a peroxide dip right now incase it's a bacterial infection or algae buildup. But I fear that may just worsen the condition of the hammer

Should I wait to get an actual dip and maybe some iodine?

Looks like recession and should bounce back

 

[thrillreefer]

i made a vertical split on my banana torch taking it off the frag plug last week. other than gluing it back together, i stuck it back in the tank and left it alone. dipping it can help, but if it was healthy before, it will bounce back. dont overreact when it comes to these things and you'll come out alright.

sorry pictures are kinda crap due to feeding time

Whoaaaa that is a serious hammer garden!

 

[thrillreefer]

Agree with all, just leave it alone for awhile and watch. Corals have evolved to survive a lot of mechanical damage. Weird parameter swings and overzealous reefers, not so much.

 

[moretor1]

Might be unrelated, but I just noticed a tiny aptaisia on the non living part of the stem

Looks like I'm gonna get a peppermint shrimp tomorrow too... oh nooooooo