help needed on hammer

[chrislzh]

hi.. recently i found out that my hammer is melting slowly portion by portion, everyday it just melt a bit... what should i do..?

[angelfish]

check your water parameter

[Javier]

maybe u can check ur phosphate lvl, it should be at 0.

[chrislzh]

how to reduce phos

[Javier]

do u have FR? if not u can buy the FR and put the phosphate remover media and let it run...

are u using salt or sea water? if salt, are u using DI water? coz tap water will increase phosphate lvl...

[chrislzh]

i dont have FR, but i think its the phos. cos all other parameter seems ok. i am using LSW

[Soul]

Go buy Rowaphos or Sorb4 to deal with the phospate, also i told u b4 dont just add calcium(Kal) to ur tank corals need more than that. Iodine, magnesium, trace elements, PH lvl of above 8, Salinity of 1.021 ~ 1.023 and plankton food occasionally.

[chrislzh]

so sad... sigh... should have done that...

[KennethK]

U run a chiller? Maybe u can do alittle read up on brown jelly disease. It could be that but i cannot tell cos u dun have a pic. Most important is to have a chiller IMO.

[Tanga]

Bro your hammer is the branching type or 1 big piece. If branching you can break the part that's rotting or dead so it won't spread to the rest of the hammer but if it's 1 big piece then maybe try to shift location where currunt are not strong and do more water changes.

[chewlaoheng]

saw 1 lfs at clementi place a big hammer high and also subject to strong current but looks good and hammer doing well.

[ClOwNy_LoVeR]

bro but that's a big piece and i don think their current is that strong bec if its too strong,the hammer will become bleached.cheers

[acontia]

if it's brown jelly then throw it out asap, or risk getting other branch/coral contaminated/infected.

what's it got to do with po4??

why chiller??

what about bleaching???

what kind of advice is all this???

???????????

[chrislzh]

its thebrown jelly... how to deal with this.. my hammer is one big piece....

[KennethK]

Frag off those infected part if it is and dispose it. It will spread.

Acontia : i asked abt chiller cos IMO they always melt without it.

[sunnymau]

Frag off those infected part if it is and dispose it. It will spread.

Acontia : i asked abt chiller cos IMO they always melt without it.

i doubt those one whole piece can be frag, only those branches one can in my opinion, any pro out there can further confirm this?

[KennethK]

1 whole pc cannot be frag and it have to be wasted. But usually hammers have few heads.

[colinsoon]

if its one whole piece, its gonna be gone when it gets the brown jelly. i find it very hard to save it.

since its gonna be wasted, maybe what you can do is, rmove the hammer, put it into a pail of clean saltwater, and use a toothbrush to brush off the brown slime. dun do it in the main tank, you dun wanna risk spreading it to the other corals. gently do it, remove as much as you can.

just to clarify some stuff...

with regards to phos, i seriously at honestly doubt it will cause the hammer to melt. at one point it time my phos level is 20 times above critical on salifert test kit, my hammers were still opening well... the only thing that i know high phos level does to corals is that it stuns growth. doesnt restrict them from opening, IMO.

bleaching of corals happen when there is insufficient lighting to the particular branch. nothing to do with high water flow. if its under high flow, all that happens is that it wun open up, and if it doesnt open up for a long long while.. it will die off. different species of hammers react differently under different water flow conditions. but rule of the thumb, DO NOT give it direct water flow. it will not do it any good.