Hammer coral dead is frogspawn next?

[MsBeanCtr]

Here is the latest picture of my hammer coral. It is right next to the derasa clam at the base. I don't expect it to make it to tomorrow. The only head that has survived is the one on the bottom and it's pretty much toast. This was one of my favorite corals. I'm worried about my frogspawn now....it is my favorite coral. I haven't seen a big change in it, other than it doesn't seem like it's expanding quite as much as it did (it's not a huge change).

I just tested my water a few moments ago---
.31/1.024
Nitrate 10 mg/l
Nitrite 0
temp 81.5
ph right between 8.0 and 8.2
CA 450 mg/l
Ammonia 0
Phosphates 0.2 mg/l

I will be doing another pwc in a few days (20%) I just did a 20% pwc this evening.

Help!

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

Brown Jelly? Did anything recently change?

You just put that clam in there, right? Maybe you accidentally crunched it when positioning the clam? Just talking out loud...

On a most likely unrelated note... 0.2ppm phosphates? Are you having issues with your source water again? Just curious...

Crossing my fingers for the frogspawn. That whole family of corals is really cool - wish I could've kept my torch.

 

[MsBeanCtr]

Nope, no brown jelly. It was in a different spot before.....I just moved it this evening so you could see it in the photo.

My ro/di unit froze during our last cold weather snap so I ended up replacing it (insert swear words here).....so I know the filters/resin/membrane are ok. I bought a new refill kit for the phosphate test kit.....I noticed that it expires next month (and I just ordered it last week from the drs site) so I'm not sure how accurate it is. I haven't had any cyano issues and I'm good about replacing my media in my phosphate reactor.

I believe this is worth mentioning....I checked the coral this morning and what was left of the hammer coral is now floating around my tank. It's weird....it's like the top of the coral just came off of the head....there's even a small piece of the head on the bottom of the green fleshly part. Hopefully that makes sense.

I just don't understand what happened here. What a bummer

 

[nanoluvr]

wow, that stinks. I have both hammer and frogspawn, and I love them.
Sounds like pwc's need to happen first, and keep testing. How often do you typically change the water, and how much?

 

[MsBeanCtr]

I do a 20-30% pwc every 6-7 days....sometimes I do more of a change. I'm stumped.....

 

[nanoluvr]

wow. That is wierd. I wonder if that coral was at war with something else and lost.

 

[nanoluvr]

that's a pretty rigorous PWC schedule, so I wouldn't think it's that...

 

[Tank2379]

Weird! What else do you have in your tank I do not know if you mention anything else?

 

[MsBeanCtr]

1 yellow tang
2 clowns
1 evil 6 line wrasse
2 rbta's
1 very large Derasa clam
Maxima clam
Crocea clam
(yes, I love clams)
various lps (frogspawns, open brains, zoas, palys, sun corals etc)
various softies (devil's hand, leathers, mushrooms)
Oh, and 2 tuxedo urchins

 

[nanoluvr]

you know...I don't know the level of toxicity of some of the softs, but that may be something to look into....

 

[Tank2379]

2 tuxedo urchin.... I would take a guess being that Tuxedo Urchin might have crashed into your Hammer coral. I heard some Urchins can knock over corals if they are hungry enough to get what they want. I am not saying that was the problem it can still be something else....

 

[MsBeanCtr]

It's funny that you mention that....someone else said that. I've been good about running GAC and changing it weekly. Perhaps that's not enough....I don't know at this point

 

[Tank2379]

I was just throwing that out there. You might want to just keep and eye out for those 2 little friendly's