LPS hammer coral missing??

[ac7av]

Everything looked fine this morning. I cam home to half my hammer missing and the one that is still there looks just fine. What the heck happened?
Did a water change on Saturday
Changed the carbon Saturday after the water change
Salt level is at 1.023
Ammonia 0
Nitrate 0
Nitrites 0
Ph 8.2
I don’t have any fish that should be picking at this kind of stuff and have not seen anything picking since its been in the tank for a few weeks. What do you think?

 

[NC2WA]

What is your Mg and Ca levels??

did a powerhead slip and spray directly on that side of the hammer???

 

[ac7av]

Well I did not check ether. They have been stable every time I do test them at 11dkh and 380 – 430 on the ca and 1200 on the mg. I’m just lazy to check those today. Had to work in the yard. It takes longer to check those 2 then to check every thing else. I only have 3 little frags in the tank so nothing to really take up any calcium at this point. No a power head didn’t come off and nothing has changed other then I forgot to turn on the lights until 1pm today but that’s about it. By 4pm it was gone. I mean really it looked great when I turn the lights on and then poof. I would think if a fish was picking at it the hammer would have just retracted into the skeleton, that its like it jumped out and is just not there not even a sign of it in that branch.

 

[lvsuckerfish]

sounds like an alk spike.

 

[ac7av]

Some times I’m a little slow but what is alk and how do I test for that?

 

[lvsuckerfish]

alkalinty and any test that makes them elos sailfert seachem

 

[ac7av]

Is that the same as the hardness test or something different?

 

[lvsuckerfish]

same
as you dkh reading

 

[NC2WA]

salifert calls it Alk test, and Elos calls it KH...same result..

 

[Faciosity]

I had a green tip purple hammer about half a year ago do the same thing. It started dropping heads one at a time with no explaination until all four were gone. It was the only coral in my whole tank that had any bad effects, and there were other hammers just a matter of inches away that did fine. Had green candy canes do it before also a few months before that.

 

[khaosinc]

When stressed, I have heard they can 'drop heads' you might want to look in some of the corners of the tank where things can be blown by powerheads you might find it. I found one loose in my tank during the fiasco of my build but gluing it didn't work and I lost it again.

 

[ac7av]

Well I wonder if it got stressed out doing the water change. I looked around the tank but I don’t see it any ware. If it slid back into the caves Ill never see it again unless It happens to get blown out by some tail wash. I had a chance to check the dkh and it is reading 11dkh. Is it possible for it to spike and then come down in a few days? It use to run higher like 14-15dkh but since I started using RODI water it’s been reading 11.

 

[hank187]

I had a peppermint shrimp eat one of mine, what live stock do you have?

 

[ac7av]

I only have 3 skunk cleaner shrimp and a coral banded shrimp and I never see them in this part of the tank.
Currant list
2 mated pair 3 Stripe Damsel
1 bicolor blenny
1 blonde naso tang
2 blue damsel
1 blue hippo tang
3 skunk cleaner shrimp
1 clown goby yellow
1 coral beauty angelfish
2 fals percula clownfish
2 firefish goby
8 green chromis
1 yellow eye kole tang
1 lemon damsel
1 mandarin dragonet green
3 sharknose cleaner goby
2 pajama cardinal
1 royal dottyback
1 bicolor royal dottyback
1 royal gramma
2 azure damsel
2 mated pair yellow damsel
1 yellow tail damsel odd guy out.
1 bristletooth tomini tang
1 scopas tang
1 yellow watchman goby
1 vlamingi tang
1 yellow wrasse
200 assorted snails and hermit crabs
1 small xenia frag
5 mushroom green (unknown name)
1 yellow soft coral (unknown name)
1 green star polyp frag
2 devel damsels
torch coral
hammer coral ½ is missing
candy Cain
3 fether dusters
1 green eye favites
1 galaxea
I think that’s it but I could have missed something.

 

[ac7av]

Okay this is just friggin weird!
30 minutes ago I turned on the lights and everything looked fine. Hammer is out and looking good. I come back in 30 minutes to feed the fish and check the skimmer, POOF. It like a magic trick. The hammer is just gone. What the heck is going on?

 

[jag3534]

Is it getting irritated by something and totally retracting? When the tissue is gone it looks way different. Its just the hard calcium boney thing.

 

[ac7av]

Its completely gone. One branch left town the other day and now the second is gone. It’s not retracted its completely jumped ship. I guess it all doesn’t matter realy now since it history but sure would like to know what it was that caused it. I thought hammer was easy to care for but I think I should just stick to fish and softies.