Hammer coral acting funny

[Jritter02]

Ever since I got my hammer coral from the LFS is has looks almost like this. At the store it was fully extended. But since bringing it home it looks like this all the time. My lighting is an orbits Programmable LED. After going back to the LFS and talking to them about it they told me to turn the intensity down on the lights then slowly bring the intensity back up. Before that my white LEDs maxed out daily at 80% intensity. After speaking with them I turned the intensity down to 40% and have slowly brought it up over the last week and a half or so. Now they are at 55-60% intensity (I don't know the wattage of the fixture). He told me that they use t5s (may have been t8s) and the store and there is a huge difference between those and LEDs as far as intensity so sometimes corals take a while to get used to them. Any other ideas? At first I had it higher in the tank but about 2-3 weeks ago I moved it lower in the tank. There isn't a Tom of water movement over top of it but there is some. My parameters are..

Alk-10.4
Ph 8.2
Cal 400
Mag 1400
Salinity 1.025-26
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrates 10-20 (was thinking of doing a water change later today which would bring that down a little)

I have a 24g nano that had been set up for about 2 1/2 months. Below is a picture I took a little while ago.

[cloak]

Move it someplace else perhaps? Time? There's always a "sweet spot."

Btw, 2.5 months is brand new. There's all kinds of things happening right now.

[Jritter02]

Should I move it closer to the light? Farther? More water flow? Less? Or should I just wait another week or so. It has gotten a little better looking since I adjusted the lights I posted a pic a few weeks ago when it first happened and everyone said it was dying. I didn't want to believe it so I kept it in the tank. Back then half of it looked like it was completely gone as it was sucked all the way into its skeleton.

[cloak]

It doesn't look too bad though IMO. Time might be all it needs... GL.

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/10/corals

[Jritter02]

Thanks so much. That link you posted Is awesome

[cloak]

Check this one out.

http://www.reefkeeping.com/joomla/in...icles-by-topic

[slief]

If that is an anemone I see in the picture just above it, I would certainly move it away from that. That said, you tank is really new at only 2.5 months old and adding corals like that at this early stage can be like flushing money down the toilet. Your nitrate levels are also a bit elevated which tells me your biological bed isn't well established or you have a high level of waste from fish and feeding.

While hammer corals can be hardy, they can also be tough to keep. Especially in an unestablished system. They like moderate indirect flow too. Without knowing your par levels and light specs, advising whether to move it up or down is a tough one. If it were me, I'd start low and move it up a bit every day in an effort to try to find a sweet spot that it likes. Still, your efforts are likely to end in futility on this one. Hammers are great corals but they don't just automatically do well because you have clean water and some light. Like most corals, they like an established stable system with good parameters, good light and decent flow.

[Jritter02]

That is an anemone that I just moved there because it was stuck behind a rock in the back of the tank. Once the hammer starts doing a little better I'm going to move the anemone. My nitrates in the tank always flutter around that same level until info a water change. I only feed the fish every other day and that is only between 1/3 and 1/2 a frozen cube of food. Only 2 fish in the tank. I have about 15lbs of live rock. Would getting more live rock help keep the nitrates down as well?

[slief]

Originally Posted by Jritter02

That is an anemone that I just moved there because it was stuck behind a rock in the back of the tank. Once the hammer starts doing a little better I'm going to move the anemone. My nitrates in the tank always flutter around that same level until info a water change. I only feed the fish every other day and that is only between 1/3 and 1/2 a frozen cube of food. Only 2 fish in the tank. I have about 15lbs of live rock. Would getting more live rock help keep the nitrates down as well?

Time will help the nitrates come down but 15 pounds of rock may not provide enough surface space for an adequet amount of bacteria. So adding more live rock certainly wont hurt as long as it's cured.

That said, that anemone isn't helping your hammer coral and will make it recede. Your hammer may never do better in such close proximity to the anemone.

[Jritter02]

It's not always that close. Usually they are on complete opposite sides of the tank. I know they don't like each other I may go get more rock tomorrow. Need some more places to try sticking this hammer coral to.

[rockslide123]

I've had Euphyllia that do what your experiencing and usually the problem is that the lights are too bright or too much flow. I think you did the right thing with the lights already so if its not that I would try to move it to lower flow. Sometimes its surprising how little flow they will tolerate. Also, if you move it and it seems to respond within a day or so keep and eye on it because sometimes they seem to respond favorably for a couple of days then go back to what they were.

[PirateToast]

Originally Posted by cloak

Move it someplace else perhaps? Time? There's always a "sweet spot."

Btw, 2.5 months is brand new. There's all kinds of things happening right now.

This. I'm closing in on my first year of having a tank. I've probably killed off 5+ frags of frogspawn and hammer corals until finally getting it. There's absolutely a sweet spot considering your flow, lighting, feeding techniques, water quality, etc. I find LPS to work best in the mid-range of my tank, but everyone is different.

It's going to take a lot of trial and error. I've found that it's almost impossible to nurse these things back to health if they don't open up in a day or two, most likely because it just doesn't like your tank for whatever reason at this point.

Oh! And I should also mention that slowly acclimating corals helps a ton. Some people say you don't need to acclimate them as slowly as fish, but my inverts and corals seem to be MORE sensitive to acclimating.

[mpderksen]

Fear not! Lol. I have a 30+ head hammer that has grown from 5 heads. A while back, it went into complete seclusion like that for no apparent reason. I posted here and was really concerned. I did move it lower in the tank, then just waited a few weeks. One day, for no reason I could see, it was open again.
This pic was as bad as it was for almost a month.

[Jritter02]

I moved it a little higher in the tank a few days ago but the flow is about the same. No luck opening any better yet. So ill give it a few days then move it to the parts of the tank where there is minimal flow.

[duperdave]

I have leds in my tank and I usually put my corals at the bottom of the tank and slowly move them too different spots over a few weeks eventually putting them where I want. seems to work very well for me

[mpderksen]

Originally Posted by duperdave

I have leds in my tank and I usually put my corals at the bottom of the tank and slowly move them too different spots over a few weeks eventually putting them where I want. seems to work very well for me

Dave,
How do you "stick" them temporarily? I have a piece of egg crate that I glued some rare-earth magnets to. I can move it up as I want.

I used these. Super powerful:

[supervdl]

I have mine low in the tank with medium flow. Running LED radions on the tank. I would keep it away from anemone. I have lost more corals to Anemones than anything else.

[duperdave]

usually glue them to a small rock and place them on the sand.then I kind of wedges the rock in the places on in my other rock work.

[Jritter02]

I just moved it a little while ago. A little higher in the tank but out of the water flow. Also turned the max intensity back down to 50%. The anemone moved to about 10-12 inches away from the hammer coral.

[Jritter02]

The hammer coral still isn't changing much even after changing loCations a few times and changing my lighting settings. I got another one today and it looks great.

[mpderksen]

Originally Posted by Jritter02

The hammer coral still isn't changing much even after changing loCations a few times and changing my lighting settings. I got another one today and it looks great.

Mine took a few weeks. Not days. Plant it and be patient. If you've changed locations a few times already, then you are only waiting a few days. Mine went from looking like I'd lose it to amazing after I left it alone almost 3 weeks.

[duperdave]

+1 let it sit in a certain place for a couple weeks to acclimate to the new flow and lighting