swollen and inflated hammer

dumpysauce

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All my torches and hammers have been swollen for the last few months. Attached is a example photo.
Alk 9, nitrate 10, phos .05. salt 35 ppt. They are all about 2 years old, and only recently have gotten swollen. This hammer is the worst of the bunch.
Any ideas what can cause this?

No flow or lighting changes in years.

hammer.jpeg
 

ISpeakForTheSeas

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I don't know if this is related or not, but it reminds me of when corals "bounce" unexpectedly (such as the acans discussed below):
They're basically joking that you've either got two corals or a "bounce" acan that would be potentially be valuable.

The only thing I can find on this condition is that it may potentially be caused either by some kind of high lighting (some people say LED's, others UV; it's basically thought to be similar to sunburn reaction in people) or by elevated potassium levels, and it doesn't seem to negatively impact the corals in any way (but the bubbles if popped are prone to infection):
So, it may be high lighting/UV or it may be elevated potassium; I've also heard of this happening to a number of other LPS corals (including different hammers), with suspected potential causes such as: coral starvation/lack of nutrients in tank, coral overfeeding, lack of flow, and toxins and/or activated carbon. No one seems to know for certain what causes it, though, and it doesn't seem to be harmful.
 

Rodz Exotic

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I know this post has been over 1 year. My hammers, frammers and octospawns do this after every weekly water change and I run my G5 radion lights low in the 60%-70% to make them even more fluffy. They been like this for over 1 year. Aqeon 210 and I use reef crystals.
 

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