Hammer broken skeleton

[captain_jimmy]

Hi everyone

I received some corals today and during my dipping process I was removing a hammer from the store plug and sliced through the skeleton with my bonecutters. The skeleton cracked all the way up and the whole hammer is a smushed mess now.

I stuck it in my tank anyways, is it a goner? Any advice for saving it?

Sorry for bad photo btw, just dosed tons of phyto so water is cloudy.

 

[Greg P]

Gel superglue (cyanoacrylate) on the skeleton away from any flesh will solve your problem.
Dab the broken bits on a paper towel to remove most of the water, apply some gel and then hold under water in the tank or a dish of tank water. Wait about 1 minute then place back where you want it to live.

 

[captain_jimmy]

Gel superglue (cyanoacrylate) on the skeleton away from any flesh will solve your problem.
Dab the broken bits on a paper towel to remove most of the water, apply some gel and then hold under water in the tank or a dish of tank water. Wait about 1 minute then place back where you want it to live.

Thanks for replying.

It's literally flattened into a pancake, do you mean basically just hold it roughly into shape and coat it in glue and let it dry?

 

[Greg P]

Just apply glue to the inner portions to form it's original shape.
Using gel you'll want to hold it in saltwater to start the 'curing' process of the superglue.

 

[captain_jimmy]

Cheers I'll try it this evening. Thanks mate

 

[captain_jimmy]

Just apply glue to the inner portions to form it's original shape.
Using gel you'll want to hold it in saltwater to start the 'curing' process of the superglue.

Hi just wanted to give a thanks for the suggestion. The little guy is glued back together and back in the tank, hopefully it pulls through.

 

[Greg P]

Good to hear. I'd pick the glue off the top but do it carefully so you don't break any skeleton. The top portion is delicate.

 

[captain_jimmy]

Good to hear. I'd pick the glue off the top but do it carefully so you don't break any skeleton. The top portion is delicate.

Will do. It's pretty delicate still so will give it a few days.

I saw a.couple polyps out today so fingers crossed!

 

[Creggers]

I've had this happen to me, I actually split a hammer completely in half after dropping it on the floor. I saw polyps on the carpet.

It's been over six months now and I've just got two baby half hammers. Not only that, but they survived a tank crash... what doens't kill you makes you stronger.

 

[captain_jimmy]

Sad news.
The hammer seemed to be doing well with a bunch of polyps extended.

Two days ago I noticed there were less polyps.

Yesterday I noticed a bright green polyp floating around in the current and saw that the hammer only had 3 polyps left so knew something was up. I kept an eye out and soon enough my goby swam over and ripped off a polyp and dropped it on the sand bed.

I moved the hammer up onto a frag rack but came down this morning and it looks extremely dead.

Mother nature is a mad scientist, friends.