Hammer coral brown excretion

[Max Rackstraw]

Tank is a red sea nano peninsula. About 90 litres I believe.

Parameters:

(All stable)

Nitrate: 0ppm
Phosphate: between 0 and 0.1ppm (thats the resolution of my test kit…)

Alk: 7.7dKH
Calc: 410ppm
Mag: 1230ppm (bit low currently)

Lighting:

1x Ai prime 16hd (see schedule below)

Ive had this hammer coral for about 7 months. During that time it has expelled this brown stuff many times. When it does it, it half closes, then opens again like normal later. I havent noticed any difference in how the hammer looks over this time. No change in colour or size, it has not grown.

Recently about a week ago i moved the hammer more to the centre of the tank as there is less flow there than outside and it was getting too much flow where it was before. This means its recieving higher lighting and less flow. It has been getting much more polyp extension here because of the lower flow.

Alright so my question is… what is this brown stuff?

On every post ive ever seen, half the responses are “its normal, its poo” and the other half are “its expelling zooxanthellae”. So what am i to believe? Can anyone prove which is true? Do we even actually know?

 

[beehive124]

That's just the coral pooping. Mine do it all of the time, especially if they get fed. Totally normal and nothing to worry about.

 

[VintageReefer]

That's just the coral pooping. Mine do it all of the time, especially if they get fed. Totally normal and nothing to worry about.

100% agree

Color is fine. It’s not doing anything unusual.

 

[Max Rackstraw]

Thanks for the fast responses guys, this is what I believe too. I just hear of these people saying its more... sinister things. And I have seen some people have their hammers excrete way more of this stuff in one go than mine.

 

[kevgib67]

Yep, there’s just one open so it’s used to take in nutrients and expel waste. Your phosphate is way low . First you’re opening the door to dinos and second you’re going to starve your corals. Shoot for.05-.1 and I didn’t see your nitrates, shoot for 10-15.

 

[Max Rackstraw]

Yep, there’s just one open so it’s used to take in nutrients and expel waste. Your phosphate is way low . First you’re opening the door to dinos and second you’re going to starve your corals. Shoot for.05-.1 and I didn’t see your nitrates, shoot for 10-15.

I know the inorganic nutrient levels are low in this tank. It settled there naturally. Any attempt to raise them causes algae growth and no change in numbers.

Before i had a skimmer, i had algae growth even with these numbers.

I had dinos in the ugly stage, but do not anymore.

I wish i could increase the inorganic nutrients for the corals, but they wont budge!

 

[kevgib67]

How old is your tank? Algae is just the right of passage, every thank goes through it, not the end of the world. You’ll need to choose from having and dealing with algae and your corals suffering. Algae is a stage with a beginning and an end. Honestly I don’t see any algae on your rocks in the picture above. Decrease water changes, turn off skimmer or just remove the collection cup and feed more. They say Reefroids increase phosphate.

 

[Manpeckz]

Buy some herbivores and chuck some food in there regularly!

 

[kevgib67]

^ This. Along with snails and crabs my tuxedo urchin is a workhorse. Although I’ve never used one, sea hares are supposed to be the best thing for hair algae.

 

[Max Rackstraw]

Its around a year old give or take. So not really new or old now. There is some hair algae here and there although short. Went through a phase of having lots so bought two tuxedo urchins and they're still going about in there keeping it clean, although i think the urchins are the reason why the tank has not grown any coralline. Ive got a load of nassarius snails for cleanup too and there is one herbivorous snail in there too, although could do with more.

I tried decreasing water changes for one week about 4 months ago, got STN on my stylophora and its not recovered since due to hair algae on it that just never went away. However I still have it because there is some living coral left on the branches and i cant just throw that away.

The tank has two clownfish only, and they get fed a conservative amount of frozen mysis once per day. I have tried increasing this amount multiple times, i never see a change in the nitrate or phosphate. But I did get cyano grow more. The cyano is cleared up now though so maybe i could try again?

Recently (last three weeks) i have been using a small amount of reef roids once per week after the water change, it hasn't really done anything for the coral or the numbers i dont believe (yet?).

I want to try different nitrate and phosphate test kits since the ones i have do not have much resolution and to be honest im not sold on their accuracy either. Which are recommended?