ORA Hammer Emergency!

[hqn77]

I came home this afternoon to a shriveled up head on an ORA Hammer. There's two heads and the other one looks fine. The one not happy is shriveled up and looks as if some flesh is peeling from the skeleton. It was fine last night. Should I dip? Cut off the one head? Will this spread to the healthy head?

Temp: 78-79
PH: 8.1
Alk: 8.5
CA: 420
Mag: 1150
NO2 & NH3: near zero
NO3: close to 1.0
Phos: <0.1

Thank you!

 

[BeltedCoyote]

@ReefSquad

 

[Red_Beard]

Any chance of a pic with whites?

For an off the cuff action, i would give it an iodine dip. I have been using povidone iodine to the point where the water is just past yellow to brown. I have a goby that buried half of mine and i ended up loosing a head. The other heads around it were taking a turn for the worse also, so i dipped the whole colony for 7-10 mins and fragged off the sad heads. These were almost goners about 3 weeks ago:

Here is the mother:

Iodine can really work wonders for damaged heads. The only thing otherwise to watch out for is brown jelly disease. I suggest making sure that isnt the culprit, as it may be necessary to use additional treatment. but either way an iodine dip wont hurt.

 

[hqn77]

Mixing up an iodine bath right now. Here are better pictures with whites. Should I cut off the healthy head to try and salvage it? Whatever is causing it, is there a chance it will spread to the healthy head?

 

[Red_Beard]

Hard to say, need to find out what the root of the problem is. Looks like you have some dinos and cyano on the sand and your nutrient levels are reading pretty low. Hammers do need some nitrate and phosphate, and at least in my experience, low leves of both early on can give you dino and cyano issues and make corals unhealthy. How old is your tank? If it is still young, i would lean towards that being a large part of what is going on and dose up N and P levels a bit. That could help with the dinos too. Also make sure there isnt something else causing irritation like blasting it with flow or a shrimp/fish/crab harassing it or another coral stinging it. I think it is up to you whether to frag it up, were it me i would let it ride a bit after dipping as it is, but if it goes further south in a week or so maybe consider fragging it to see if you can at save them separately. Hope that all helps, that is a lovely hammer!

 

[hqn77]

Hard to say, need to find out what the root of the problem is. Looks like you have some dinos and cyano on the sand and your nutrient levels are reading pretty low. Hammers do need some nitrate and phosphate, and at least in my experience, low leves of both early on can give you dino and cyano issues and make corals unhealthy. How old is your tank? If it is still young, i would lean towards that being a large part of what is going on and dose up N and P levels a bit. That could help with the dinos too. Also make sure there isnt something else causing irritation like blasting it with flow or a shrimp/fish/crab harassing it or another coral stinging it. I think it is up to you whether to frag it up, were it me i would let it ride a bit after dipping as it is, but if it goes further south in a week or so maybe consider fragging it to see if you can at save them separately. Hope that all helps, that is a lovely hammer!

You're absolutely right. I've been dealing with low nutrients for a few months now and have added 4 fishes (chromis) in the last month to bring nutrients up. I'm also running the skimmer for 8 hours a day, maybe I should cut that back more. Phosphates doesn't register on the Hanna, but does on the Salifert. Tank is 18 months old.

Both heads not happy after dip, releasing slime. I put it in a low flow spot for now, although it has been in the previous spot for a year without any issues. If things don't improve by morning I'm going to split it. Thank you such for the advice, much appreciated.

 

[Red_Beard]

18 months? And still low nutrients? What is your bioload like? Feeding more will make your fish happy and push nutrients up, or you could always turn off the skimmer or dial it way down to keep aeration but skim less. The other thing that would get nutrients up would be reef roids or another coral food. I had exactly those same issues while my tank was <a year. I ended up dosing neophos and neonitro for 3 months or so. Whatever you do, a little quick bump is ok, but anything sustainable is going to need done gradually and consistently.

Yeah, mine always pull in a bit and slime up real good after a dip, but over the next day or so the healthy head should puff up nice and the other head should start to recover. The real issue though is fixing whatever caused the stress in the first place. Were it mine, i would probably dose in some N and P to about .01 P and 5 N and measure over the next couple days to see how quick it gets used up. Then dose every 2-3 days while getting a little more food in with less aggressive skimming. Once it levels start coming up you can cut dosing and adjust feeding/skimming until it balances out where you want it. It may take a good month, but with that things should start looking better.

Probably a good idea moving it to a lower flow spot for a bit. Another thing to consider is lighting, intense light and stressed corals in low nutrients is going to make it worse.

 

[hqn77]

I split the two heads this morning. The healthy one fully opened but the other one is still shriveled up and have lost about 50% of the flesh. Dipped the damaged head in a Revive bath after cutting, fingers crossed. ;Nailbiting

I've been retracing my steps after reading @Red_Beard 's comments regarding the low nutrients, and think I know the cause. My bio load isn't low, 1 purple tang, pair of clowns, 4 chromis, 2 sapphire damsels and 2 wrasses in my IM SR-80. Up until 4 months ago I was running the IM Ghost skimmer, but switched to a Coralife Super Skimmer rated for 220 gallons because the IM was too noisy. After I got it dialed in, the Coralife was pulling out about cup of thick dark skimmate every other day. I started seeing dinos and cyano about a month after putting in the new skimmer.

So my plan for now is to cut back on water changes, run skimmer less, feed more and continue to test and see if nitrates and phosphates increase. I have an LPS dominated system, and I have not noticed any other corals in the tank being affected. I would prefer not to dose N and P if I can get around it by adjusting my routine and current equipment.

Cheers!

 

[Red_Beard]

That hammer starting to look any better?

 

[hqn77]

The healthy head is almost back 100%. The other one is pretty much a goner. There's hardly any flesh left and whatever is left is slowly dissolving. I'm keeping a close watch on all the other euphyllias to make sure this is an isolated incident. I just finished putting up a 20 gallon temporary coral QT tank just in case I need to pull any other casualties from the DT. Hopefully this was an isolated incident and I have some time to adjust the DT levels. Thank you.

 

[Red_Beard]

Sorry to hear that man.

 

[KrisReef]

I would remove the sick head from the water.
I would treat with Ciprofloxacin.
Information here:

Experimenting with in-tank antibiotic treatments for Brown Jelly Disease

Brown Jelly Disease (BJD) is an issue many reefers have run into. Like most coral diseases, the pathogen causing BJD has not been conclusively determined. Here I will share some observations and test results supporting the idea that its caused by a bacterial pathogen, and so may be treatable...

www.reef2reef.com

 

[attiland]

You're absolutely right. I've been dealing with low nutrients for a few months now and have added 4 fishes (chromis) in the last month to bring nutrients up. I'm also running the skimmer for 8 hours a day, maybe I should cut that back more. Phosphates doesn't register on the Hanna, but does on the Salifert. Tank is 18 months old.

Both heads not happy after dip, releasing slime. I put it in a low flow spot for now, although it has been in the previous spot for a year without any issues. If things don't improve by morning I'm going to split it. Thank you such for the advice, much appreciated.

If you have 0 Phosphate on Hanna ULR I would trust that to be not enough.
start dosing phosphate to 0.05 or more.
my hammer liked even crazy levels of phosphate and nitrate.
you want your nitrates at 5-10ppm
Your mg is also low

 

[hqn77]

I did pull the damaged head out of the tank yesterday. Upon closer inspection it smelled bad, like a raw oyster that went bad. Thanks @KrisReef and @attiland for the information. I am keeping a close eye on the tank for brown jelly disease and will start dosing P and N soon to raise levels.

Happy reefing!

 

[Townes_Van_Camp]

I have that same hammer. It’s not fancy but it’s a favorite of mine it’s pretty in a very subtle way. No retina burning neons, just a nice soft green with a pinkish silver tip.

I am glad you were able to save some of it!!!!

 

[Red_Beard]

@hqn77 how is the tank looking with a little less skimming?

 

[hqn77]

It's getting better. I ended up running the skimmer every other day to get the nutrients up. At the moment still trying to find the right balance with dosing nutrients and running skimmer. Been dosing Fish Of Hex nitrate and phosphate but would rather get off that and let the tank take it's natural course.

 

[hqn77]

I have that same hammer. It’s not fancy but it’s a favorite of mine it’s pretty in a very subtle way. No retina burning neons, just a nice soft green with a pinkish silver tip.

I am glad you were able to save some of it!!!!

The head I saved is showing signs of splitting into two. Hopefully it won't be long before I have multiple heads again.