Hammer coral falling apart..

[mr. tuna]

My branching hammer that ive had for over 2 years now is falling apart. My water paremeters are perfect, and so is every other coral i have. The problem is.. is that the branches break at the base, because the branches would acctually start to thin out and acctually break. It has happened about 4 times, and the most recent time was acctually 20 min ago, and now i only have 1/3 of my hammer left. Here is a pic of the whole thing..
now i only have 1/3 of what you see. Does anybody know what can cause this?
thank you

 

[sac10918]

Can you post your water parameters?
Do you check calcium? If the skeleton is breaking off, it sounds to me like it doesn't get enough calcium. I believe you want greater than 400ppm of calcium. I use the B ionic two part calcium addition for my frogspawn and bubble.

 

[mr. tuna]

my calcium is at 480 now..
salinity- .025
cal- 480
alk- 10
ammonia-0
nitrite-0
nitrite-0
ph-8.2
would you think glueing the coral back sounds like a good idea? or no?
because this peice is the nicest in my system.. and its ashame to let it fall apart.

 

[uberlink]

i don't know on the gluing. Are you using anything to hasten its growth? In Borneman's book on corals, he warns against using supplements intended to quicken the growth of stony corals for this very reason: they grow too quickly for their own good, and they don't grow strong. Just a thought...not that it helps much at this point!
Sorry to hear your guy isn't doing to well. Hope he improves!