Good morning,
Just a story. So I’ve had a branching indo hammer frag (sitting in the sand bed on its plug) for a few months in my pico tank. The first couple months both heads were doing great. Shortly after adding a yellow tail damsel, I noticed one of the heads began to not fully expand. I didn’t pay it any attention, and it had been this way for about 1.5 weeks, expanding less and less. I know horrible reefkeeper.
Well, then the past few days, I also noticed the second head started doing the same thing. I’m not seeing any brown jelly, no visible pests, nothing. The only thing different to the tank was the yellow tail damsel and slightly increased feedings.
So my 65 gallon has been set up and running for a few weeks and everything seems to be balanced out and ready for transfer of corals. I pick up the hammer frag and noticed there appeared to be broken skeleton in each head. I flip it upside down and lo and behold, 3 or 4 grains of sand fall out from the heads. I completed the transfer, and now both heads are already re-expanding. Now here’s hoping the Coral Beauty leaves it alone (it’s left everything else alone so far).
I have a feeling the sand would have killed it if I hadn’t caught it. Turns out the yellowtail didn’t like the caves I had for him and was making his own between branching rock and the sand, kicking a bunch up. Found one of my Ricordea that I thought died, just buried in the sand too
Quick crappy night time pic as my lights are off right now and it just got moved as it fell from its spot overnight:
Now to leave it be and see what happens. Let it distress and adjust to the new lights
Just a story. So I’ve had a branching indo hammer frag (sitting in the sand bed on its plug) for a few months in my pico tank. The first couple months both heads were doing great. Shortly after adding a yellow tail damsel, I noticed one of the heads began to not fully expand. I didn’t pay it any attention, and it had been this way for about 1.5 weeks, expanding less and less. I know horrible reefkeeper.
Well, then the past few days, I also noticed the second head started doing the same thing. I’m not seeing any brown jelly, no visible pests, nothing. The only thing different to the tank was the yellow tail damsel and slightly increased feedings.
So my 65 gallon has been set up and running for a few weeks and everything seems to be balanced out and ready for transfer of corals. I pick up the hammer frag and noticed there appeared to be broken skeleton in each head. I flip it upside down and lo and behold, 3 or 4 grains of sand fall out from the heads. I completed the transfer, and now both heads are already re-expanding. Now here’s hoping the Coral Beauty leaves it alone (it’s left everything else alone so far).
I have a feeling the sand would have killed it if I hadn’t caught it. Turns out the yellowtail didn’t like the caves I had for him and was making his own between branching rock and the sand, kicking a bunch up. Found one of my Ricordea that I thought died, just buried in the sand too
Quick crappy night time pic as my lights are off right now and it just got moved as it fell from its spot overnight:
Now to leave it be and see what happens. Let it distress and adjust to the new lights
