Hammer coral looking worse, what's growing on it?

[RooftopKorean]

Hello, today while checking on my hammer coral, I noticed this brown hairlike substance growing around the body. I'm worried this is brown slime disease since it'll spread to my other corals. Can anyone take a look and tell me what's going on? I've also noticed the hammer coral slowly dying. What can I do to bring it back to life?

Thank you

PH - 7.8
AMMONIA - 0
NITRITE - 0
NITRATE - 10 PPM
PHOSPHATE - 0.01
KH - 6.2
SALINITY - 35.7
CALCIUM - 528PPM

 

[RooftopKorean]

Re-uploading the video in the correct format this time.

 

[Ocellaris40]

Looks like your flow is pretty high which has always caused my hammers to retract. I'd see if there was a bit lower flow area you could move it to. It's a little hard to see but it looks more like some hair algae on the base there.

Good thread on brown jelly:

Thread 'Brown Jelly Disease: Current Treatment Strategies!' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/brown-jelly-disease-current-treatment-strategies.714440/

 

[RooftopKorean]

Looks like your flow is pretty high which has always caused my hammers to retract. I'd see if there was a bit lower flow area you could move it to. It's a little hard to see but it looks more like some hair algae on the base there.

Good thread on brown jelly:

Thread 'Brown Jelly Disease: Current Treatment Strategies!' https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/brown-jelly-disease-current-treatment-strategies.714440/

Hey Ocellaris40, thanks alot for your response. I went ahead and turned down the flow right away. I'm running two xstream sdc powerheads and I had the schedule set at 30-40% power. Turned it down to 20-25% to see if that'll help. It does look alot like hair algae, I was reluctant to call it brown slime right away since it looked more hairy than slimy. Is hair algae anything to worry about/treat? My tank's still new so I hope that means it's a sign of progress rather than some disease. Thank you for the brown Jelly thread, Checking it out now and saving it!

 

[Ocellaris40]

One benefit in my experience in keeping the hammers on the frag plugs is ease of moving and removing. I have taken mine out and manually removed all the algae, outside of the tank, and scraped the plug itself with a razor blade being careful not to scrape the hammer itself. FWIW, my first hammer looked as bad or worse than yours, after finding the right spot for it, a few months later it looks fat and happy

 

[slingfox]

I can’t see the video (most can’t unless you post to YouTube), but if it is GHA or dinos you should scrape off the growth. Since your tank is new it is likely to grow back. Over time as tank stabilizes this should become less of an issue. To increase chances of getting help post some pictures under white light.

Don’t do what I did nd get corals too quickly. Most of the coral I put in at month 1 got wiped out by successive outbreaks of ulva/dinos/cyano/GHA in month 3. The dinos also wiped out most of my CUC. I am only now starting to get coral again in month 6.

 

[joaocdestro]

Do you dose carbon? No3 + po4 + carbon = bacteria...

I had issues with tha same algae than you, killed them with fluconazole but they came back time to time..

When started dosing vodka I could erradicate it definetively. Bacteria will eat the food in water colum before algae and starve it.

Bacteria is a good food for all corals!

 

[Ocellaris40]

Agree on waiting. I've definitely lost zoas to cyano.


What salt is being used? How are you measuring? You could probably bring salinity down to 35 ppt, and that would bring your calcium down some.

 

[RooftopKorean]

One benefit in my experience in keeping the hammers on the frag plugs is ease of moving and removing. I have taken mine out and manually removed all the algae, outside of the tank, and scraped the plug itself with a razor blade being careful not to scrape the hammer itself. FWIW, my first hammer looked as bad or worse than yours, after finding the right spot for it, a few months later it looks fat and happy

I totally agree with keeping hammers on plugs or disks. I originally had it leaning on my rock but decided to put it on a disk just incase I needed to move it and I can always remove it if needed. Seems like the hair algae is something to remove, it seems tomorrow will be cleaning day for this coral! Thanks for the motivation, This is one of my first corals (I had this and a torch coral but killed the torch the first day by being too rough on the dipping stage) I'm going to start moving it around and hope for the best!

 

[RooftopKorean]

I can’t see the video (most can’t unless you post to YouTube), but if it is GHA or dinos you should scrape off the growth. Since your tank is new it is likely to grow back. Over time as tank stabilizes this should become less of an issue. To increase chances of getting help post some pictures under white light.

Don’t do what I did nd get corals too quickly. Most of the coral I put in at month 1 got wiped out by successive outbreaks of ulva/dinos/cyano/GHA in month 3. The dinos also wiped out most of my CUC. I am only now starting to get coral again in month 6.

I just took some photos of it, I hope this helps. It looks insanely retracted right now but it looks a bit better during the day. I'm going to have to research on GHA / dinos to see if it's indeed that or hair algae, either way I'll have to remove it it seems. Would this be a good time to get a cleaning crew?

That's pretty terrifying what happened to your corals and CUC. That get's me quite anxious as I bought three new corals today hahaha but I asked the LFS guy what the best ones were for beginners so, I'm sure they'll be able to stand some new tank adjustments (hopefully) What's different between month 3 and month 6 that made you confident in getting corals again?

 

[RooftopKorean]

Do you dose carbon? No3 + po4 + carbon = bacteria...

I had issues with tha same algae than you, killed them with fluconazole but they came back time to time..

When started dosing vodka I could erradicate it definetively. Bacteria will eat the food in water colum before algae and starve it.

Bacteria is a good food for all corals!

Holy crap I do! I have a carbon bag in my media cup. So, I should take it out immediately? I also have a GFO bag, Should I just take it all out and let the tank do its thing? I didn't realize I was actually hurting my tank but then again it's a bit confusing when you say bacteria is good food for all corals? I'm having trouble understanding if this is good or bad bacteria and do you mean you literally poured some vodka into your tank?!

 

[RooftopKorean]

Agree on waiting. I've definitely lost zoas to cyano.


What salt is being used? How are you measuring? You could probably bring salinity down to 35 ppt, and that would bring your calcium down some.

I've been using red sea coral pro salt but today at the LFS they were out and had instant ocean reef crystals so, I had to buy a bag of that for todays water change. I'll be purchasing red sea coral pro salt again though to use as my main salt. I measure by pouring alot of salt into my 5 gallon bucket, let my RODI run and use the hanna salinity tester and adjust from there. I'll fix the water tomorrow and bring it down to 35. It's been high lately due to my ATO being busted and think that did some damage.

 

[Mr. Mojo Rising]

Should not be running gfo on a brand new tank? Your phosphate is already too low. Nitrate is borderline low.
Your alk at 6.2 is very low, many of us are around 8.5 alk, so the hammer likely suffered from change of alk which is hard on corals.
I would suggest to continue slowly, don't do too much so fast. Hammer is not an easy coral and would do better in a more mature tank.

 

[RooftopKorean]

Should not be running gfo on a brand new tank? Your phosphate is already too low. Nitrate is borderline low.
Your alk at 6.2 is very low, many of us are around 8.5 alk, so the hammer likely suffered from change of alk which is hard on corals.
I would suggest to continue slowly, don't do too much so fast. Hammer is not an easy coral and would do better in a more mature tank.

Thanks for the info, I'm still getting my bearings on what the normal ranges are so that was super helpful. I'm going to take all of the GFO and carbon media out of the filter cups right now but is it okay to leave one of my media cups empty? the other one has biomax media (those cylindrical rocks) and I'm wondering if I should order more to fill the empty cup now? I'm also fighting a bacterial bloom at the moment and it'll be interesting to see if the tank will balance itself out after taking out the media.

 

[Ocellaris40]

Thanks for the info, I'm still getting my bearings on what the normal ranges are so that was super helpful. I'm going to take all of the GFO and carbon media out of the filter cups right now but is it okay to leave one of my media cups empty? the other one has biomax media (those cylindrical rocks) and I'm wondering if I should order more to fill the empty cup now? I'm also fighting a bacterial bloom at the moment and it'll be interesting to see if the tank will balance itself out after taking out the media.

Just my two cents here - if I understand your bioload right now, you have 2 clownfish and some coral in a 40 gallon tank? Is that right? In this case, I think you should be fine w/ no mechanical filtration at least for a bit. I don't use any mechanical filtration (other than protein skimmer, my tank drains into a sump with my return pump, heater, and UV sterilizer. the Sterilizer has always kept the cloudiness at bay, no issue. I would also reduce your feeding, and in fact every time I'm unhappy with algae, or nutrient readings, one episode of Reef Therapy always pops into my head, where Jake Adams says "reduce your lighting photo period and intensity" and to "reduce your feeding" just enough to keep everyone happy, but no more. I regularly watch reef therapy (it's on youtube, but also most pod cast apps) Though, I think the earlier videos were the most educational, not a knock on Remy or Raj, but I just appreciated the earlier ones before we lost Jake.

If having no mechanical filtration concerns you- just keep an eye on nutrients, and do more frequent water changes.

 

[vetteguy53081]

Re-uploading the video in the correct format this time.

Tissue has heavy recession and while alk may play a role, its calcium thats important for their skeletal health. it should not be below 390. Additionally they do not favor High phosphate levels nor high water flow but rather moderate water flow and moderate to medium light. While not picky about location, lower third of tank is best but not on sandbed.

 

[joaocdestro]

Holy crap I do! I have a carbon bag in my media cup. So, I should take it out immediately? I also have a GFO bag, Should I just take it all out and let the tank do its thing? I didn't realize I was actually hurting my tank but then again it's a bit confusing when you say bacteria is good food for all corals? I'm having trouble understanding if this is good or bad bacteria and do you mean you literally poured some vodka into your tank?!

Yes i use 8ml of smirnoff vodka every day in 930 liters of my tank

You should have no3 2 until 20 and po4 0,03 to 0,08 search for the store world wide coral paramenters…

 

[RooftopKorean]

Just my two cents here - if I understand your bioload right now, you have 2 clownfish and some coral in a 40 gallon tank? Is that right? In this case, I think you should be fine w/ no mechanical filtration at least for a bit. I don't use any mechanical filtration (other than protein skimmer, my tank drains into a sump with my return pump, heater, and UV sterilizer. the Sterilizer has always kept the cloudiness at bay, no issue. I would also reduce your feeding, and in fact every time I'm unhappy with algae, or nutrient readings, one episode of Reef Therapy always pops into my head, where Jake Adams says "reduce your lighting photo period and intensity" and to "reduce your feeding" just enough to keep everyone happy, but no more. I regularly watch reef therapy (it's on youtube, but also most pod cast apps) Though, I think the earlier videos were the most educational, not a knock on Remy or Raj, but I just appreciated the earlier ones before we lost Jake.

If having no mechanical filtration concerns you- just keep an eye on nutrients, and do more frequent water changes.

unfortunately, as much as I wish I had a pair of clownfish right now, the other one I had jumped out of my tank and died around 2 weeks ago so, now it's just one clownfish and a total of four corals and correct, in a 40 gallon(long) tank. I also have a protein skimmer, would you recommend turning that off as well or should I atleast have the skimmer running? and what UV skimmer do you run? I've been looking at the aqua ultra violet from BRS but the price tag is too hefty. You also made me subscribe to Reef Therapy! they seem to have alot of good info(although it seems the earlier episodes are better with this Jake guy after reading what you wrote) and it's perfect to leave on while working or relaxing. I'm feeding my fish only once a day now instead of twice to cut down on the feeding and I'll have to up my water change and hope for the best. Thanks for your help man!

 

[RooftopKorean]

Tissue has heavy recession and while alk may play a role, its calcium thats important for their skeletal health. it should not be below 390. Additionally they do not favor High phosphate levels nor high water flow but rather moderate water flow and moderate to medium light. While not picky about location, lower third of tank is best but not on sandbed.

okay, so my calcium seems to be good since it's over 500 but I've moved it to the sandbed so, I'll just move it higher after I scrub the algae off. thanks to your info!

 

[RooftopKorean]

Yes i use 8ml of smirnoff vodka every day in 930 liters of my tank

You should have no3 2 until 20 and po4 0,03 to 0,08 search for the store world wide coral paramenters…

blows my mind that you can use add vodka to your tank. This hobby is so cool. Thanks, I'm using https://worldwidecorals.com/pages/guarantee this site now to understand what my baseline parameters should be.