One polyp of my hammer seems to be dying

[legrunt]

I have a small colony of toxic green branching hammer. The frag was originally just 2 heads. Let's call them A and B. At first both did well, and had good polyp extension. But over the months, I noticed A was growing more, and B was ... stagnant, as far as growth was concerned. The base of A was elongating, showing new white base, and even split a couple of times. In fact, there is now A1, A2 and A3. B's branch, on the other hand, never had new growth. These past couple of days, I noticed B had shrunk considerably, and I believe, is now on the verge of death. the A heads, on the other hand, are still doing absolutely fine. Below this colony is another colony of normal green hammers, and below that, a colony of wall hammers.

Tank is 16 gallons. Parameters are tested weekly, alk 8, mag 1390, cal 410, sal 1.026, ph 8.0, nit 3, phos 0.03
Only fish are 2 clowns. Haven't added anything new into the tank for months.

So the question is, do individual polyps of LPS age and die off?

 

[kichimark]

I have had some of my euphyllia overcrowd some heads when they got large. I noticed some have received less light and would not grow as full as others that overshadowed them.

If the A's are growing and thriving, you could remove the "B" and put that head in its own location if you are worried about the A's outgrowing that B section.

 

[legrunt]

The strange thing is that, originally B was higher than A (like double the height), but with the way A was growing, A is now taller and is 3 headed.

 

[kichimark]

The strange thing is that, originally B was higher than A (like double the height), but with the way A was growing, A is now taller and is 3 headed.

That is a puzzle for sure. The strange things that happen in our tanks leave me baffled sometimes.