Suffering hammer

[REEF24]

Hey guys so I had a customer drop off a hammer coral for my tank in my restaurant, it’s like a nice gesture some reefer customers like to do. So it was great for the first 4 days and today I came in and most of the polyps are basically gone. I feel bad cause the customer brought it over and I feel bad for being responsible. I don’t have parameters for you guys but I have other corals in there doing fine even reproducing. I even see my rock slowly purpling.

When I setup the tank it was all borrowed rock and water so it was an instant tank and I do water changes every week and a half.

I believe the culprit is my light, it’s this Amazon nicrew Led light. Very basic…

Could this be causing the issue?


Lmk what yall think.

Here are some photos.

 

[REEF24]

Mind you this came from a
Pretty established reef tank. All on the Neptune system, ozone generated and all. Could it just not be used to my tank?

 

[JTP424]

For this one we'd need parameters to start diagnosing.

 

[Fish Fan]

Agreed, we would need some parameters here. If you don't have them, I'd suggest some good test kits like those from Salifert or Hanna Checkers are popular.

A few observations would be that the tank is likely a little new and not yet stable enough for the hammer coral.

These old hex style tanks don't really offer a lot of surface area for their volume, and for whatever reason they can sometimes be problematic to run.

Looks like you have two Clownfish and two Damsel fish (all are in the Damsel family of fishes) and that's just too much fish for this tank, plus your other fish. The Clowns and Damsels are not going to get a long in the long-term, and would be best to be rehomed. Maybe just one single Clownfish for this tank would be my suggestion.

Please post with tank parameters and we can try to help further with the coral.

Good luck!

 

[DoupaZzz]

The link for the light isn't working, could you put down the name of the model instead, thx.

 

[stE26wy14]

still no params? we need them

cool tank!!

 

[DoupaZzz]

Update?

 

[REEF24]

Agreed, we would need some parameters here. If you don't have them, I'd suggest some good test kits like those from Salifert or Hanna Checkers are popular.

A few observations would be that the tank is likely a little new and not yet stable enough for the hammer coral.

These old hex style tanks don't really offer a lot of surface area for their volume, and for whatever reason they can sometimes be problematic to run.

Looks like you have two Clownfish and two Damsel fish (all are in the Damsel family of fishes) and that's just too much fish for this tank, plus your other fish. The Clowns and Damsels are not going to get a long in the long-term, and would be best to be rehomed. Maybe just one single Clownfish for this tank would be my suggestion.

Please post with tank parameters and we can try to help further with the coral.

Good luck!

Sounds good, I do a 5 gallon once a week water change to make sure it’s not loaded with nitrates and some local reffer guy said that’s to much and I should bring it down to like 2 gallons a week. I wanted the tall hex tank so it stands out on the back counter in my bar in my restaurant. Although now I would consider changing it up and getting an AIO tank. This was my impulse tank and my first saltwater tank.

 

[REEF24]

The link for the light isn't working, could you put down the name of the model instead, thx.

 

[REEF24]

Update?

I haven’t tested the water yet because I was waiting for my HANNA METER. I was having such a tedious time using the refractometer having to calibrate it before and after checking my salinity. Since getting it I fixed the salinity in my home tanks and tomorrow I’m going to fix this hex tank salinity tomorrow when i get in to work. As for the other parameters I know I sound ignorant but I’m assuming they are ok since I’ve been doing a 5 gallon water change every week since I’ve set up the tank. I used borrowed system water and rock so it was an instant tank. I also added bacteria at the time. I’ll get the water tested soon. I don’t trust any of the test kits anymore because different kits have different readings and it’s pretty wack. There is this one shop that has the AQUA SPIN tester and I feel like that’s the best available, so I wanna use them. It’s just a bit far from my tank so I gotta keep a water sample on me and take it the next morning. Will the water parameters change in the bottle overnight?

 

[Fish Fan]

Sounds good, I do a 5 gallon once a week water change to make sure it’s not loaded with nitrates and some local reffer guy said that’s to much and I should bring it down to like 2 gallons a week. I wanted the tall hex tank so it stands out on the back counter in my bar in my restaurant. Although now I would consider changing it up and getting an AIO tank. This was my impulse tank and my first saltwater tank.

New friend, doing water changes is a great way to manage a smaller tank. I'd recommend even larger water changes, not smaller, but we don't know if you are not testing for things like nitrate and phosphate :)

There's really nothing wrong with a hex tank, but somehow these are always problematic, and honestly they are not (to my knowledge) made any more, if that tells us anything. If it suits your taste and space, that's great. If you had the idea of replacing it with an AIO tank, I'd suggest that would be a good idea. You'd be upgrading a lot; these newer tanks look great, which is important if you're a business (to me, at least), the glass is crystal clear, you can hide all your filter gear, and there's more saltwater specific upgrades and gadgets you can add to help. Did I mention they look great lol??

I do stand by two things from my previous post: you have too many fish, and not the right mix of fish. Specifically, Clownfish and Damsels are all in the same family of fish, and they are known to be very aggressive. Even if you're not now seeing aggression, as these fish grow and age, you're likely to end up with one big, fat fish, if you get my meaning :)

And second, we need numbers :) Saying my parameters are "in line" or "all perfect" or similar is a little like going to the auto mechanic and saying that the car's engine is making some funky noises, but the compression is perfect. The first thing that mechanic is going to do is to is a compression test to get a hard number. We need numbers to better help you.


Trusted and inexpensive test kit are the Salifert brand, please take look at these:
https://www.chewy.com/salifert-aqua...Fx4zFMyjOVrNhnmoaodT9T9hcrefAxUBoCcioQAvD_BwE
As always, I hoped that helped, please post agian with questions or a progress report :)

 

[Fish Fan]

I haven’t tested the water yet because I was waiting for my HANNA METER. I was having such a tedious time using the refractometer having to calibrate it before and after checking my salinity. Since getting it I fixed the salinity in my home tanks and tomorrow I’m going to fix this hex tank salinity tomorrow when i get in to work. As for the other parameters I know I sound ignorant but I’m assuming they are ok since I’ve been doing a 5 gallon water change every week since I’ve set up the tank. I used borrowed system water and rock so it was an instant tank. I also added bacteria at the time. I’ll get the water tested soon. I don’t trust any of the test kits anymore because different kits have different readings and it’s pretty wack. There is this one shop that has the AQUA SPIN tester and I feel like that’s the best available, so I wanna use them. It’s just a bit far from my tank so I gotta keep a water sample on me and take it the next morning. Will the water parameters change in the bottle overnight?

Yes, please double check your numbers at the fish shop that has the Aqua Spin. I have no experience with that, but at least they are not using an API kit we can all get at Petco, which has a reputation of being a bit inaccurate.

How large is the tank? From the pic, I'm guessing about 12 gallons, and if so 5 gallons/week is a decent water change. But you don't know until you know your numbers :) You could be changing too much water, or not enough.

Handling salinity is, in my non-expert opinion, the most often overlooked parameter. Keeping your salinity stable is of vital importance because when the salinity swings, so too does your alk, calc, and just about everything else dissolved in the water. I'd suggest looking into an Auto Top Off (ATO) system to *automagically* replace freshwater that evaporates. An ATO would go a long way to keeping your salinity stable, and makes life a lot easier than topping off by hand.

I do hope you have an RODI water filter to make clean freshwater to both make saltwater and to replace freshwater evaporation. In most locals tap water simply will not work for corals. If you don't have an RODI system, you can use distilled water from any grocery store, pharmacy or your local Mega-Lo-Mart.

Beyond your salinity, if you're going to keep corals it would be wise to have test kits for nitrate, phosphate, alkalinity, calcium, and ideally magnesium. You don't need them all at once, I'd suggest getting them in that order.

Again, I hope I've helped, and I'm sure others will also be along to offer their suggestions too :)