Enad
Active Member
Hi all,
I've been dealing with some Hammer issues the last few months and I've finally gotten to a point where I feel like I need some help.
I have a mature 2 year old mixed reef tank(60 Gallons Display, 20 Gal Sump) that is largely self-sufficient. I do weekly water change and dose some All For Reef a few times a week, Lugols and Restor once a week after my water change, as well as Maganese for my Goni's daily. I feed AB+ a few times a week, and Hydrospace Coral Snow occasionally when I have it.
Lately I've been having some real issues with my Hammers, though it's hard to pinpoint what is going wrong because not only is every other type of coral, including my Acropora and other SPS doing amazing, I have other Hammers within the 'garden' doing fantastic. I've found that many of my Hammers will do great for a few months, and look amazing with no signs of stress or alarm but all the while are slowly losing their flesh bands until it reaches the top of the skeleton and now things are desperate for that coral.
However, again, I have Gold Rainbow and Hologram colonies that have huge flesh bands and have been growing fairly rapidly, to the point where I've trimmed them a few times in just the last few months.
ALL my Hammers are in effectively the same location of the tank. They receive very similar lighting and flow as one another. None of these corals that end up dying or receding show any signs of stress what so ever. Looking at a picture of my Hammer garden, you would think they're booming...until they're not one day.
In this picture above, it shows my Hammer Garden. This was taken on Feb 15th and since then, the puffy Orange Hammer and the larger Green with Orange tipped Hammer have both died. Rapidly succumbing to recession and then BJD.
In the picture above, it shows a prized hammer colony that I absolutely love and has been absolutely booming for months. Yet as of two days ago, has started to recede in various locations. I've been doing Seachem Iodine Reef Dip treatments every day since it started showing the problem.
There are no other corals touching them. The pictures may show the Goni's/Alveoporas close by but they are further apart in reality and never touch. There are no fish or critters picking at them. I'm at a complete loss.
To add to my confusion, I have a number of Hammers growing out in my sump that are fairly 'neglected'. As in I don't pay attention to them much, don't feed them or anything. They're in low flow and under a Kessil A80 at 50-60% intensity...half the time these Hammers don't even look that great - Yet I've never lost a single one down there. They're all somehow fine. They all have fairly small flesh bands but it's not actively receding, and they continue to slowly grow new heads.
I don't have my absolute current parameters handy at the moment, though I plan on testing tomorrow when I have some more time. My Params from last month are typical, 450ish Cal, ~1500 Mag, 9-10 alk, ~10-20 Nitrate and ~0.5-1 Phos - though I don't believe there's an issue here as, again, the rest of the tank and other hammers in the garden are all doing fantastic and show no signs of imbalance in parameters. I keep things quite simple so there's little room for variance with my parameters anyway.
So yeah, I'm at a loss here and I'm desperate for some help dealing with this. I think my next step is to try a KFC Full Tank Treatment but I'd love some more opinions on what might be going on.
I've been dealing with some Hammer issues the last few months and I've finally gotten to a point where I feel like I need some help.
I have a mature 2 year old mixed reef tank(60 Gallons Display, 20 Gal Sump) that is largely self-sufficient. I do weekly water change and dose some All For Reef a few times a week, Lugols and Restor once a week after my water change, as well as Maganese for my Goni's daily. I feed AB+ a few times a week, and Hydrospace Coral Snow occasionally when I have it.
Lately I've been having some real issues with my Hammers, though it's hard to pinpoint what is going wrong because not only is every other type of coral, including my Acropora and other SPS doing amazing, I have other Hammers within the 'garden' doing fantastic. I've found that many of my Hammers will do great for a few months, and look amazing with no signs of stress or alarm but all the while are slowly losing their flesh bands until it reaches the top of the skeleton and now things are desperate for that coral.
However, again, I have Gold Rainbow and Hologram colonies that have huge flesh bands and have been growing fairly rapidly, to the point where I've trimmed them a few times in just the last few months.
ALL my Hammers are in effectively the same location of the tank. They receive very similar lighting and flow as one another. None of these corals that end up dying or receding show any signs of stress what so ever. Looking at a picture of my Hammer garden, you would think they're booming...until they're not one day.
In this picture above, it shows my Hammer Garden. This was taken on Feb 15th and since then, the puffy Orange Hammer and the larger Green with Orange tipped Hammer have both died. Rapidly succumbing to recession and then BJD.
In the picture above, it shows a prized hammer colony that I absolutely love and has been absolutely booming for months. Yet as of two days ago, has started to recede in various locations. I've been doing Seachem Iodine Reef Dip treatments every day since it started showing the problem.
There are no other corals touching them. The pictures may show the Goni's/Alveoporas close by but they are further apart in reality and never touch. There are no fish or critters picking at them. I'm at a complete loss.
To add to my confusion, I have a number of Hammers growing out in my sump that are fairly 'neglected'. As in I don't pay attention to them much, don't feed them or anything. They're in low flow and under a Kessil A80 at 50-60% intensity...half the time these Hammers don't even look that great - Yet I've never lost a single one down there. They're all somehow fine. They all have fairly small flesh bands but it's not actively receding, and they continue to slowly grow new heads.
I don't have my absolute current parameters handy at the moment, though I plan on testing tomorrow when I have some more time. My Params from last month are typical, 450ish Cal, ~1500 Mag, 9-10 alk, ~10-20 Nitrate and ~0.5-1 Phos - though I don't believe there's an issue here as, again, the rest of the tank and other hammers in the garden are all doing fantastic and show no signs of imbalance in parameters. I keep things quite simple so there's little room for variance with my parameters anyway.
So yeah, I'm at a loss here and I'm desperate for some help dealing with this. I think my next step is to try a KFC Full Tank Treatment but I'd love some more opinions on what might be going on.
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