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Sucked up hammer during water change!


Sexy Shrimp

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Sexy Shrimp

Just as it says on the tin! I was doing a water change and noticed that my sulphur gobies have just had babies. Got a little excited and didn't notice my hose had touched the hammer until half of the hammers had been sucked off!! The tissue around the skeleton is intact but the hammers on half of it are shot! Not sure how the mouths are...

 

The question is - will it regenerate? If not, how do I frag off the good half?

 

I am soooo gutted - it had outgrown my tank and I was thinking of trading it. Didn't want to kill it :(

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Tagging along here as I made the same stupid mistake last Sunday so don't feel too bad L34nn3. At least you were distracted by something notable. For me it was letting the old mind drift a bit.

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Sexy Shrimp

Ack!

 

I feel so bad - its was my clown's fake nem... They loved it!

 

Here is the before:

 

100_2629.jpg

 

Here is the after pic :( Clown and neon goby always manage to get in the shot ;)

 

100_2763.jpg

 

(excuse the GHA - been lacking on water changes due to best LFS being out of action due to relocation :( )

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chuckfullservice

I don't have an answer but I'm soo sorry to hear about it Leanne!

Isn't funny how your mind always seems to drift away when doing maintenance on your aquarium?

I have had so many near misses when reaquascaping or doing water changes it not even funny !

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Shame I couldn't have sucked up the YWG fry - can't find them now :(

 

I am sorry to say that odds are they were eaten by the other fish.

 

I think you have a even chance that it will regen on that side. The problem will be if algae takes hold first or not.

 

I would agree. Mine, even though its the size of a 50 cent piece, has started to heal up a bit and I am watching it closely as well as feeding it. At first I thought it was a goner with over 1/2 of its poor hammers popped. So only time will tell.

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Sexy Shrimp
I am sorry to say that odds are they were eaten by the other fish.

 

 

 

I would agree. Mine, even though its the size of a 50 cent piece, has started to heal up a bit and I am watching it closely as well as feeding it. At first I thought it was a goner with over 1/2 of its poor hammers popped. So only time will tell.

 

It looks a little more "open" on the sucked up side now but some hammers are clearly torn off.

 

The YWG fry were about 5-6mm in size - I'm thinking they were a few days old (they were much larger than newborn FW fry). Hopefully they just went into hiding when I stuck my hands in the tank. I'm keeping my fingers crossed (but deep down I know you're right lol)

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Okay, let's form a "accidentally sucked coral into bucket" club. I've done it to hammers and frogspawn and they regenerated, but the caveat is they were the branching type, not sure about yours. I've also "hosed" Xenia (caught them in my hand as they came out the pipe and threw them back in the tank, never missed a beat of their tentacles!), mushrooms,(caught'em, threw them, missed the tank, scooped off floor, after thirty minutes they were opened back up), and sexy shrimp (where'd he go, oh, there he is in the bucket :lol: )

Club name is open to debate.

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United_Poseidon

I have done this numerous times without inflicting any permanent damage. These corals are more resilient than most people think. I am sure it will be fine.

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Sexy Shrimp

Pheweeee.

 

I think I will post a weekly photo update in case anyone else ever has the same problem :(

 

I didn't manage to suck all of the hammers - there's peraps a dozen still OK in the "bare" side. Maybe it will be OK...

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Just keep medium flow on them and keep an eye out for brown jelly and stuff. I had a softball sized chunk of palys melt a head of hammer. About a month and a half later, it's growing back quite nicely.

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I have done this numerous times without inflicting any permanent damage. These corals are more resilient than most people think. I am sure it will be fine.

 

I dont beleive it that some of you have accidently inflicted damage to these corals and had them survive. I cant get 1 to stay alive in my tank for more than 3 days (I have tried twice). Now I am really hesitant to ever try again. I dont want to kill anymore of these beautiful corals.

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my old hammer got sucked up a few times and polyps always regenerated.

 

Leanne, the torn area on the polyp will closed up in a couple of days. the end point of the polyp will not regain the original color in short period, say if it is gray at the tip and green on the sides, it will stay green through out for a long long time. like a month or so.

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Sexy Shrimp

Duncan - thanks tons for sharing! It's nice to have definite positives from someone who'd been there. I just hope it doesn't get somesort of fungal/bacterial infection before it heals...

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sometimes during the summer I siphon my nano gobies in and out of buckets and tubes like a waterpark. Fish need fun too.

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could be the same thing as fragging half a head of acans... oh... i f'ed up with my elegance and dropped it (in tank) and broke off a bunch of skeleton and tissue. healed over nicely :) only thing i haven't been able to bring back ever was a stupid wall frogspawn. i think yours should be okay, since i always accidentally suck up my torch (the tentacles are so damn long!).

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Sexy Shrimp

Here is the updated pic 24h later - you can see where the individual hammers have healed over. As usual girl clown and neon goby in pic!

 

100_2771.jpg

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Sexy Shrimp

Latest update (minus fish hogging the camera as its just lights on and I beat them to it!)

 

100_2782.jpg

 

Excuse the very yellow light - bought a new halide and they send me a 10k bulb grrrr

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Sexy Shrimp
Glad to see everything is looking ok. That is them coming back right ^^;

Looks like they're regenerating :)

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