Can someone please help me with my hammer coral!!!

Natescorals

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My hammer was looking great and now all of a sudden it looks like this! I’m not sure what’s wrong but it just doesn’t look right any idea what could be wrong with it??

D53E97E0-D050-4F9E-994A-AF64A9F086CD.jpeg 200ED4C9-7F6A-41F7-9FC5-678F88023114.jpeg B384DC2A-2E81-4550-911F-F487FB5D12B0.jpeg
 

45ZoaGarden

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Had the lights just come on when you took the pic? My euphyllia deflate and look awful as soon as the lights come on. An hour later and they look better than ever.
 
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Natescorals

Natescorals

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No it’s been like this for about a week now. I did have a cleaner shrimp in the tank that kept jumping on top of it and stealing food. That really irritated it. But the shrimp is gone now. Does it look like it’s dying?
 
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Natescorals

Natescorals

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Parameters are good. Nitrates are about 3.
Ph-8.2
Temp-78.5
Ammonia 0.
phos-0
Salinity-1.025
Alk-196.9
I don’t test anything else because I only have soft corals and only that one hammer and I do weekly water changes. I only have 2 clownfish. 1 is a little baby. My tank is a 20 gallon long. I am running a lot of filtration. I’m running polyester battling filter floss in a hang on back filter. With poly filter and purigen. Also running seachem matrix for biological filtration and also running a hang on back refugium with chaeto. And a protein skimmer. Is that too much?
 

45ZoaGarden

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It looks like it’s pretty upset. I don’t see any flesh recession yet so it’s not at the point of actually withering away now but that will happen soon. What are your water parameters? Once we know those, we can figure out what’s wrong and hopefully save the coral :)
No it’s been like this for about a week now. I did have a cleaner shrimp in the tank that kept jumping on top of it and stealing food. That really irritated it. But the shrimp is gone now. Does it look like it’s dying?
 

45ZoaGarden

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No, that is
Parameters are good. Nitrates are about 3.
Ph-8.2
Temp-78.5
Ammonia 0.
phos-0
Salinity-1.025
Alk-196.9
I don’t test anything else because I only have soft corals and only that one hammer and I do weekly water changes. I only have 2 clownfish. 1 is a little baby. My tank is a 20 gallon long. I am running a lot of filtration. I’m running polyester battling filter floss in a hang on back filter. With poly filter and purigen. Also running seachem matrix for biological filtration and also running a hang on back refugium with chaeto. And a protein skimmer. Is that too much?
no, that isn’t too much filtration. I’ve never heard of that LOL. What are you testing phosphates with? The reason I ask is because the ideal phosphate for a mixed reef tank is 0.10-0.20 and a test kit reading 0 could mean the phosphates are really 0.9 which is way too high and would definitely make your hammer coral mad.
 

W1ngz

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There 's definitely such a thing as too much filtration.

Why are you using the poly filter? That should only be used when you know you have a contaminant in the tank that can't be removed by activated carbon.

The matrix is unnecessary, your live rock does that. Purigen is probably not needed either and could be removing nitrates and phosphates that the corals want in small amounts.

You're probably removing important trace elements from the water. I'd remove all the chemical filtration, and leave just the floss, skimmer and the refugium. The only way to really know, would be ICP testing.
 
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Natescorals

Natescorals

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Also I added some cheap carbon in a bag about a week ago and I guess I didn’t rinse it good enough and it made my tank extremely cloudy. Do you think that could be it?
 

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