Looking for some hammer advice.

[neforpubl]

Please read whole post. Sorry for length.

Wondering if we have any euphylia experts in here? Every coral in my tank is doing fine and one of my hammer heads is doing great, but one is having bailout and the other is about to say screw this also.
Note: sand is not a perm spot for it either. I just wanted it out of the direct flow so it can adjust to the water.
I have it in the back while it acclimates to the tank some more and where the flow isn't doing anything other than a normal wiggle for it. I'm running the same lighting that they run at WWC from the tank it came out of actually as well.

Tank is a few months old with established livestock and a nice collection of acan, mushroom, candy canes, zoas, star polyps, Kenya tree, and some other coral.

Parameters are fine as well.
Tank: 15g peninsula
Salinity - 1.026
Temp - 77.9
pH - 8.2
Ammonia- 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 6.4ppm
Phosphates - 0.07
dKH - 8.5
Calcium - 410
Magnesium - 1290

I have a skimmer running on the tank, but have it turned down currently to just oxygenate the water for pH instead of skimming a bunch. Figured I'd raise the nitrates a little to find some balance. Corals seem to like it better when the tank isn't bottomed out in nutrients.

I dipped it in Coral RX before it went into a 2 week quarantine. Was fine in the QT tank for the most part. The bailout head was closed up for a few days.

The only thing I haven't done is feed it since I know frogspawn and hammers usually just spit everything out.

Anyone have any advice?
EDIT: Worth noting the bailout really started happening after my water change on Sunday. That's when it became apparent.
My water is 0TDS also. Test it with an inline probe and a handheld probe.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

Hammers and frogs like magnesium in my experience. I feel your mag is on the low side. Just my experience. Have you had any large parameter swings?

 

[neforpubl]

Hammers and frogs like magnesium in my experience. I feel your mag is on the low side. Just my experience. Have you had any large parameter swings?

Not sure if I would call it large parameter swings since its only been in my tank since Sunday. I did a water change right before. I do 5gal on my 15 so 30%.
Is it possible to have too clean of water for a hammer?

 

[Cichlid Dad]

I run 10- 25 nitrates and .03-.1 phosphate in a mixed reef with acro's. I don't remember if hammers eat out of the water column.

 

[Cichlid Dad]

A Comprehensive Guide To Hammer Coral Care | Sunnyside Corals

Learn everything you need to know about hammer coral care with our comprehensive guide for beginners, from lighting and water flow to feeding and placement.

sunnysidecorals.com

 

[neforpubl]

I run 10- 25 nitrates and .03-.1 phosphate in a mixed reef with acro's. I don't remember if hammers eat out of the water column.

I think thats how they get most of their food besides light.
I have reef roids coming. so i think i might try spot feeding it.

Someone in the facebook group im in said to cut the good head off to save it.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Please read whole post. Sorry for length.

Wondering if we have any euphylia experts in here? Every coral in my tank is doing fine and one of my hammer heads is doing great, but one is having bailout and the other is about to say screw this also.
Note: sand is not a perm spot for it either. I just wanted it out of the direct flow so it can adjust to the water.
I have it in the back while it acclimates to the tank some more and where the flow isn't doing anything other than a normal wiggle for it. I'm running the same lighting that they run at WWC from the tank it came out of actually as well.

Tank is a few months old with established livestock and a nice collection of acan, mushroom, candy canes, zoas, star polyps, Kenya tree, and some other coral.

Parameters are fine as well.
Tank: 15g peninsula
Salinity - 1.026
Temp - 77.9
pH - 8.2
Ammonia- 0
Nitrites - 0
Nitrates - 6.4ppm
Phosphates - 0.07
dKH - 8.5
Calcium - 410
Magnesium - 1290

I have a skimmer running on the tank, but have it turned down currently to just oxygenate the water for pH instead of skimming a bunch. Figured I'd raise the nitrates a little to find some balance. Corals seem to like it better when the tank isn't bottomed out in nutrients.

I dipped it in Coral RX before it went into a 2 week quarantine. Was fine in the QT tank for the most part. The bailout head was closed up for a few days.

The only thing I haven't done is feed it since I know frogspawn and hammers usually just spit everything out.

Anyone have any advice?
EDIT: Worth noting the bailout really started happening after my water change on Sunday. That's when it became apparent.
My water is 0TDS also. Test it with an inline probe and a handheld probe.

Often too much flow causes bailout. Hammers are intolerant to major swings in water quality, and sensitive to almost any level of copper in the water especially if any tap water was added. Calcium and alk are important parameters that will affect their growth and this coral will start to die off if calcium levels are too low which should be about 400 ppm.
Basically, avoid bright light and water flow and dark lighting. Bright lights cause bleaching and low lighting will cause them to shrink and starve. Maintain moderate light for their photosynthesis and keep it off the sand bed which sand can irritate it.
I suspect your Po4 if accurate is causing issues

 

[neforpubl]

A Comprehensive Guide To Hammer Coral Care | Sunnyside Corals

Learn everything you need to know about hammer coral care with our comprehensive guide for beginners, from lighting and water flow to feeding and placement.

sunnysidecorals.com

This is great write up and great link. Thank you!

 

[neforpubl]

Often too much flow causes bailout. Hammers are intolerant to major swings in water quality, and sensitive to almost any level of copper in the water especially if any tap water was added. Calcium and alk are important parameters that will affect their growth and this coral will start to die off if calcium levels are too low which should be about 400 ppm.
Basically, avoid bright light and water flow and dark lighting. Bright lights cause bleaching and low lighting will cause them to shrink and starve. Maintain moderate light for their photosynthesis and keep it off the sand bed which sand can irritate it.
I suspect your Po4 if accurate is causing issues

I figured 0.07 was okay for Po4?
I tested it with my hanna system, API, and salifert and they all showed 0.07-0.08.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

The tank does look brand new, and like I mentioned in some other post yesterday, euphyllia is a bit picky and can struggle in a new tank, they prefer going into a more mature tank. Try to keep everything as stable as possible.

 

[neforpubl]

The tank does look brand new, and like I mentioned in some other post yesterday, euphyllia is a bit picky and can struggle in a new tank, they prefer going into a more mature tank. Try to keep everything as stable as possible.

The tank itself is about 4 months old. It was a transfer from my old tank. I downgraded from a waterbox 40.2 that I had up for 6 years. Took my rocks and part of my sand over. I then still did a cycle for a couple weeks, bred pods in my jars and seeded them.
The tank is very well established.

 

[neforpubl]

Update: fragged off the other two heads with a Dremel. They were a total loss. The good head is now mounted on a rock in the middle bottom of tank on a rock with adequate flow and light. Fed him some reef roids as they just came from Amazon today, he spit most of it out which I expected. He is fully extended and happy though.
May never know what was up with the other two heads. This head is happy though.
Only other coral that is ticked off is the favia behind the hammer. That's my fault though. H2O2 got a little too close to it when I was killing some algae. Some of the polyps made it, but the lower ones said screw this lol.

Just in case anyone didn't know also. H2O2 bleaches Coraline lolol. All of my rocks were purple and had some green turf on them (from last tank). Dipped some rocks over the last month slowly via spot treatment. Algae is basically gone which is great but a lot of the rocks are dull in color now. Coraline is growing back quickly though so that's good.