Hammer losing color

[Kingkold020]

Currently have one hammer that has become sort of transparent. I’m not too sure what the change is. My parameters have been stable and I haven’t made too many changes to my tank. In that span I have only added 1 skunk cleaner and 1 white spot goby, as well as some Nassarius Snails. The only reason I could think there is an issue is because it recently split.

parameters:
Salinity: 1.024
Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
pH: 7.8
Alk: 8.8
Mg: 1440
Calcium: 475

pics:

 

[JCTReefer]

Po4 levels???
I’d bump your No3 up. Say to around 5-10ppm and your Po4 to .03 - .10ppm. That is if they aren’t in that range. The more hammers inflate the more translucent they will look. And of course blasting them with crazy light can cause bleaching. But yours, being on the bottom, light is probably not an issue. What test kits are you using?

 

[Kingkold020]

Po4 levels???
I’d bump your No3 up. Say to around 5-10ppm and your up to Po4 .03-.10Pppm. That is if they aren’t in that range. The more hammers inflate the more translucent they will look. And of course blasting them with crazy light can cause bleaching. But yours being on the bottom, light probably not an issue. What test kits are you using?

I’m currently using Sailfert test kits. Any idea on how to bump up nitrate and phosphate? I’ve been regularly feeding my fish but I’ve seen no change. I’ve even had my water tested by another kit and they both showed 0.

 

[JCTReefer]

Me personally. I tried the feeding route for boosting nitrate and phosphate. Didn’t work for me. I dose sodium nitrate and Seachem flourish phosphorus for phosphate. The sodium nitrate I use is a stock solution I make myself. It’s really easy to do. Here a pic of the sodium nitrate I buy. It’s pharmaceutical grade. Here’s the calculator I use for mixing also.

James' Planted Tank - Dosing Calculator

 

[Kingkold020]

Me personally. I tried the feeding route for booting nitrate and phosphate. Didn’t work for me. dose sodium nitrate and Seachem flourish phosphorus for phosphate. The sodium nitrate I use is a stock solution I make myself. It’s really easy to do. Here a pic of the sodium nitrate I buy. It’s pharmaceutical grade. Here’s the calculator I use for mixing also.

James' Planted Tank - Dosing Calculator

Thanks for the help! I will probably try this out.

 

[Dkmoo]

That looks like a fairly new tank, I'd say you are seeing "no raise" in No3 and Po4 bc its currently being soaked up by your rock, substrate, and microorganisms trying to stablish themselves in the new environment

Keep feeding more probably isn't going to make much difference bc now its a math game of "surface area for nutrients absorption" so most of what you feed go to the substrate/rocks or go to the other organisms (since yiur corals are still very small now and make up only a tiny portion of the tanks surface area). Whatever gets locked up in rocks will also make the algae problem that you'll have in a few months harder to fix once the rock start leaching back nutrient.

Bleaching could also be due to light. Did you move it to a diff place?

If you think its due to it starving, try target feeding it instead of dosing N source directly into the water to raise no3. Trying to raise no3 and po4 now will more likely give you an algae/cyano problem instead.

 

[JCTReefer]

You will get to a point when everything is saturated. Especially if you go the dosing route. And at some point things like your rock will start releasing that back into the water. So keep that in mind.

 

[JCTReefer]

I’m scared of having 0 numbers. Lol!!!’ After all the hell I had with Ostreopsis and Amphidinium, I swore I’d never let that happen again. I’ll take GHA any day of the week. Biodiversity is key though.

 

[Kingkold020]

That looks like a fairly new tank, I'd say you are seeing "no raise" in No3 and Po4 bc its currently being soaked up by your rock, substrate, and microorganisms trying to stablish themselves in the new environment

Keep feeding more probably isn't going to make much difference bc now its a math game of "surface area for nutrients absorption" so most of what you feed go to the substrate/rocks or go to the other organisms (since yiur corals are still very small now and make up only a tiny portion of the tanks surface area). Whatever gets locked up in rocks will also make the algae problem that you'll have in a few months harder to fix once the rock start leaching back nutrient.

Bleaching could also be due to light. Did you move it to a diff place?

If you think its due to it starving, try target feeding it instead of dosing N source directly into the water to raise no3. Trying to raise no3 and po4 now will more likely give you an algae/cyano problem instead.

I did end up moving it about 2 inches to the left about a month ago because it was touching the other hammer. I’ll probably move it back into its previous spot then.