new hammer coral dying

ThatsDeep!

Clown Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#1
Tank parameters check out. Just got this 3 or 4 days ago. Other hammer and frogspawn thriving, but this new small one had one head nearly gone after first night. Gone - just the hole. It continued with that pattern though we moved it. This a.m. only one of 4 heads left but one looked partially there - just brown matter floating. It had spent the night next to our green hairy mushroom who is in process of splitting.

Never had seen such extreme change a coral. Fish? Tailspot blenny, long nose hawk, pygmy hawk, pajama cardinal, two spot goby. I did bust our emerald crab holding a "hitchhiker" that was ID'd as a bleached coral of some kind. He had it is his claws and I am pretty sure he ate it. Never seen him near a coral other than that and I was more worried that he would die from a bad dinner choice.

What are we missing??
 

aztecdreams

Bat Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#2
Brown matter floating? Possibly brown jelly infection? In the past , I've had them die after either bumping the head. Also sometimes some shrimp are known to eat them
 

ThatsDeep!

Clown Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#3
aztecdreams;321627 said:
Brown matter floating? Possibly brown jelly infection? In the past , I've had them die after either bumping the head. Also sometimes some shrimp are known to eat them
Yes, what appears to be the only part of the head left still attached and floating [ in QT] as I read that it can hurt other corals. We have no shrimp as the long nose will eat them. I will look at brown jelly infection - thanks so much!
 

ThatsDeep!

Clown Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#5
Wow, last healthy looking head [just since coming up to get on forum] has begun to deteriorate. This brown appears to be under the head and high magnification finds us both seeing no parasites. This coral had never opened fully. We can't see it fitting brown jelly, but man is it a quick death. It was a hammer we'd never seen before - bright turqoise color off the scale and so we bought it unopened. I wonder if anyone has seen such a quick die off as this... I hope it is not something that will spread but we are going to do water change and carbon filter. Unbelievable.
 

jda123

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#6
Salinity is huge with euphillia. Is your hydrometer/refractometer calibrated correctly? The existing ones might be able to adapt to changes whereas the new ones just quickly die.
 

ReefCheif

Reef Shark
M.A.S.C Club Member
Platinum Sponsor
#7
Don't let that brown jelly get on any other LPS, It'll do the same thing. That brown jelly is not good and if that hammer is secreting it it's pretty much already done for and I'd remove it before it causes issues with other corals
 

ThatsDeep!

Clown Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#9
jda123;321632 said:
Salinity is huge with euphillia. Is your hydrometer/refractometer calibrated correctly? The existing ones might be able to adapt to changes whereas the new ones just quickly die.
1.025 on calibrated refract.
 

ThatsDeep!

Clown Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#10
ReefCheif;321633 said:
Don't let that brown jelly get on any other LPS, It'll do the same thing. That brown jelly is not good and if that hammer is secreting it it's pretty much already done for and I'd remove it before it causes issues with other corals
So weird, does it seem like brown jelly if it is under the coral head and no parasites present? Is brown jelly this aggressive? We have it in QT but wonder what may already be in DT, you know? It does not fit the criteria for brown jelly in some ways - damn. Oops. Anyway, thank you all for taking the time to help. I believe we are FTFBT on this one but I will see if Kip wants to continue to stare at it. J
 

ThatsDeep!

Clown Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#11
I think the hardest thing is the decision to stop working at dying livestock. Man, it kills us. Then I kind of see $30 floating in the QT... then I read that "some people have success in regrowth". This is brutal. Sorry I did not start with a photo but I still suck at getting pics onto this site. Now, I would have to have a disclaimer that "these photos may be disturbing to some viewers" Lol!
 

SkyShark

Dolphin
M.A.S.C Club Member
#12
ThatsDeep!;321631 said:
t was a hammer we'd never seen before - bright turqoise color off the scale and so we bought it unopened. .
Do you mean that the coral wasn't open in the store tank, or you bought it the day the store got it before they took it out of the shipment bag?
 

ThatsDeep!

Clown Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#13
SkyShark;321649 said:
Do you mean that the coral wasn't open in the store tank, or you bought it the day the store got it before they took it out of the shipment bag?
It was in their tank but not polyped out , but we were told it had just been fragged so it was already stressed. Does not look like a good frag job [hindsight] as it was extreme angle cut but I know nothing about fragging an LPS. I do know that we learn every time this kind of thing happens :( I also remember saying how "seasoned" I thought our tank was becoming and that everything is happy and much new growth - I don't think it is a good idea to say that as everytime I have we are trying to solve a bizarre problem.
 
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ReefCheif

Reef Shark
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#14
Wait, LFS sold you a fresh cut frag? Do you mind if I ask where this was?
 

ThatsDeep!

Clown Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#15
I don't want to say. I believe it was a relatively new employee and in truth I love this store and there was no malicious intent. I believe that the owner would want to make this right, but I am not going to pursue as it was our first visit. I am sure it can happen at most places. I was not in on the conversation and discussed when we got home. We did learn from this and I had no idea about this disease or what to look for. Kip kept saying that all the MASC peeps say "inspect and dip!" at every meeting. I did do a dip [ always] but - well we learn some the hard way. Just hoping that our other hammer and frogspawn do not have issues because of this. Thanks for your input and we got rid of it asap as you suggested yesterday, did a water change and added carbon in the fuge.

Thanks everyone.
 

SynDen

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#16
Well yes, a good learning experience, but no shop should sell a frag that has been freshly cut and that may have been what lead to the death of the coral. If it was freshly cut the coral is already stressed. Generally it needs at least a week to recover and heal before it is moved to a new environment. Being freshly cut and then moved to a new tank just compounds the stress on the coral and greatly decreases the chance of survival for the coral. If a shop says that is freshly cut the shop should never put it up for sell until it has had a chance to heal for at least a week if not 2.

I would bring it up with the owner, because if this was a newer employee that did not know any better then at least it lets him know and he can work to correct the issue so that it does not happen again
 
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ThatsDeep!

Clown Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#17
Understood. We decided to give them a call and let them know what happened. In addition, if that was brown jelly, we'd like them to know what recently came out of their tank. Don't want anyone else to share the pain :)
 

ThatsDeep!

Clown Fish
M.A.S.C Club Member
#19
Dip an iodine dip on the hammer and it looks much better. I'm thinking if it was the same disease we dealt with it early enough. Time will tell.
 
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