Hammer looking bad

[cj7eagle]

I was able to come across some hammer coral for my 29 gallon reef tank. it did great for about a week, then I added my 10 gallon sump/fuge and ss65. the next day it was all shrunken down. I figured maybe the stress of me messing around with things was doing it. This was about 2 weeks ago. It seemed like it was starting to come back a little bit, but now its not looking so hot again. any suggestions?
ph 8.2
ammonia 0
nitrite 0
nitrate 20
calcium 340
kh/alk 9.4/3.37
phos. .03
SG 1.025
temp 77-78

 

[cantbstopd]

what other corals do you have? any change in any thing else...fish or corals? how long since your light bulbs where changed? :thinking: just throwing some things out there......

what wattage and type of light?

 

[cj7eagle]

lighting is coralife aqualight 130w PCS (less than a month old)
I have some mushrooms that did the same thing, except they came back and are doing great.
some xenia died during the change too.
fish and inverts are ok.

 

[stanlalee]

you didn't by chance blow a lot of sand into the display tank while adding the sump? I did when I added a 10g sump to my 30g and what it didn't kill took months to recover back to normal. Hammer took a really long time to get back to normal.

 

[cj7eagle]

Originally Posted by Stanlalee
you didn't by chance blow a lot of sand into the display tank while adding the sump? I did when I added a 10g sump to my 30g and what it didn't kill took months to recover back to normal. Hammer took a really long time to get back to normal.

thats most likely what happened. any suggestions to help it? or do i just play the waiting game? how do i know if it is dead for sure?

 

[cj7eagle]

any ideas at all?

 

[stanlalee]

I didn't do anything special but hope for the best, left everything alone to recover and learned a good lession so I dont do it again. it took several months for my hammer to start coming back to normal. I'm not even sure why this affects corals like it does but I did here a coral expert saying creating sand storms will harm or kill corals but not fish. some of my corals were barely affected at all (blue mushrooms), some went nearly dead then recoved to normal within a few days (open brain, slimed up like a cacoon. new it wasnt going to make it and a few days later it was like nothing happened), some never recovered (candycane, christmas tree coral, xenia, yellow polyps, zoos all dead), some took months upon months to recover (hammer, button polyps) and some are alive but havent been the same since (green star polys). not really helpful but a bump for you.
when/if its dead you'll know. if there is any poly expansion its not dead yet. the skeletal base will be prominent and free of tissue. will look simular to this in no time (although this is the candy cane that died)