I posted this in the LPS section but have not received any replies yet. Any help is appreciated
I bought two hammer corals about a week apart back in early March and they were both looking great for about 3 maybe 4 weeks, then they started to close up and tissue started to recede. Now today they still do not fully open and on my hammer that has 3 heads, the Hammer shaped tips seem to have disappeared and some tentacles seem to be stuck together at the tips. Also have noticed tiny black maybe red bugs on the skeleton as well as what I am assuming are mesenterial filaments coming out today after I fed a little bit of reef roids. When I noticed the hammers looking bad in March I had my Alk tested at a LFS because I didn't have a test for it and was told the Alk was a little low around 6 or 7 so they recommended I try using some Seachem Reef Carbonate. I'm sure I raised my Alk to high too fast so that didn't help the problem with the hammer's. My alk has been pretty stable around 8.3-8.8 for the last 3 week though and not much has changed. For lighting I was using a Hipargero Aqua knight LED light but I just upgraded to an Ai Prime 16HD 3 days ago. I also have a Hydor Koralia Nano 240 gph powerhead in the tank but lately I have not been using it too much since I have pretty good water flow with just the return pump.
Water parameters as of 2 days ago are
Temp - 79 degrees
Salinity - 1.025-1.026 Refractometer
Phosphate 0.25 - API test
Nitrite 0 - API test
High Range pH 7.8 - API test
Nitrate somewhere between 10-20 API test
ALK 8.8 - Hanna checker
Calcium 440-450 API test
Do not have a Mag test yet
I buy my RO water and natural Sea water from my local LFS and do weekly water changes of 2-5 gallons on a 20 gallon waterbox.
This is how the hammers looked in early March
The rest of the pictures are mostly from today but some are from a week ago. The last 2 pictures are of my bright green single head hammer and the rest are from the 3 head hammer.