Is half this hammer dead? What to do next

[yambeezy23]

On Father’s Day WWC had a sale so I took advantage and bought a ton of coral. I purchased 2 colonies from the west coast store and a whole bunch of frags from the Orlando store.

Everything in my tank is doing good including my new sps from WWC.

The two colonies are another story.
One colony was a frammer and it came DOA. The second colony was this huge blueberry hammer.

Out of the 3 heads looks like half of one heads is going through polyp bail out. How should I proceed? I just moved it to the sand bed. It was on the hammer island on the left on the right side. See pictures.

I don’t know what to do with the colony at this point.

I’m about to do a big water change on Sunday to get all the hair algae out. I believe that’s why my phosphates are at 0. First time they bottomed out.

Alkalinity nitrate and phosphate done by Hanna checker. Calc and mag by Salifert.

Waterbox 35.2 salinity at 1.026 @ 78 degrees

I do a 5 gallon water change every Sunday. This Sunday I’ll be doing a 10 to work on the hair algae manual removal and possibly a brush with hydrogen peroxide.

Everything else in the tank looks healthy in my opinion.

 

[crazyfishmom]

That’s a wall hammer. Looks pretty rough. I’ve seen people save them by cutting away the dead head, iodine and cipro, and crazy glue over the wound to help seal but as you might imagine this is pretty intense for the coral so highly risky. I think though that if not treated quickly you’re definitely going to lose the entire piece.

 

[Tcook]

I now avoid wall hammers. For future long-term success with lps you need to get your nitrate and phosphate up. Had little to do with this coral’s decline though.

 

[yambeezy23]

That’s a wall hammer. Looks pretty rough. I’ve seen people save them by cutting away the dead head, iodine and cipro, and crazy glue over the wound to help seal but as you might imagine this is pretty intense for the coral so highly risky. I think though that if not treated quickly you’re definitely going to lose the entire piece.

I don’t think I would have bought it being a wall hammer lol

Oof that does seem intense. If it dies in the tank could it kill off the rest of my coral?

 

[crazyfishmom]

I don’t think I would have bought it being a wall hammer lol

Oof that does seem intense. If it dies in the tank could it kill off the rest of my coral?

Unfortunately it happens a lot that wall hammers with the bowed structure tend to be mistakenly listed as branching.

It would not kill the rest of your coral but I would pay attention since it can potentially develop BJD which can affect other sensitive corals.

If it does develop BJD, kill all flow as soon as you notice it and pull it from the tank immediately and then turn flow back on.