My hammer coral is dying

[Dixigrl87]

I have had my hammer coral for a couple weeks now. He was doing good for the first couple days then he started to stay closed most of the time. Today I noticed that there is a portion abouth and inch long that only has the skeletal structure left. I moved him higher up in my tank this afternoon to see if he just needs more light. Do you think that may be all that is going on here or can anyone give me suggestions on how to get him happier? Most of my other coral is doing really good such as my xenia, starpolyp, mushrooms and torch but I have always had problems with zoanthids. They always die. Could something be going on that is causing my hammer coral to die for the same reason? Please help me because I hate to watch things slowly dwendel away.

[rayme07]

Hi Welcome to TR.

I have a few question for you. What are your parameters of your tank? What type of lighting do you have?

[Dixigrl87]

I have a 65G tank with a sunpod lighting system. The light has two 150W MH bulbs in it, 4 florescent bulbs and moonlights. I just upgraded one of my old tanks to the 65G about two months ago and I have put the hammer coral in since the upgrade.

[CarmieJo]

What are`the SpG, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, pH, Ca, alk & Mg?

[Dixigrl87]

I checked all of my levels today and everything is perfect. I keep a very close watch on that because with my smaller tank I had a lot of troubles with my levels spiking all of a sudden but with this tank there hasn't been any trouble keeping everything where it needs to be. The only thing that I haven't checked is the ammonia.

[CarmieJo]

Euphyllias like hammers and torches are usually very hardy so I'd check the ammonia too. What were the other levels? They can close up if there is too much current. Did you QT it? Can sweeper tentacles from any other corals reach it? What fish do you have?

[Dixigrl87]

I will have to check the ammonia. I did a dip test earlier today so I don't know exactly what the levels were but everything looked really good. The spot that I had him in for a while didn't have much curent at all but I moved him today, well actually yesterday, so he could get more light (just in case that was the problem). I didn't QT him and no other corals can touch him so I guess the only thing left is the ammonia. As far as the fish go I have the following: yellow tang, flame angel, blue velvet, four stripe damsel, watchman goby and 3 clown fish (one is a sweetlips clown)

[CarmieJo]

The angel could be picking on him. The dip stick tests are not very accurate so you may have a problem and not be able to see it.

[rayme07]

Is any of your clowns hosting the hammer that could be why he is like that.

[Dixigrl87]

My clown fish and angel fish don't really seam to pay any attention to the hammer coral. I will do some more accurate water testing today. Thanks for all of your help and I will let you know how things go.