Is this BJD or poop on my hammer frag?

[Luism23]

What do you guys think? 

[Luism23]

@mcarroll what are your 2 cents bud? 

[geekreef_05]

Unlikely your hammer survives. That does not look good. Likely brown jelly. 

 

Sorry dude.

[Luism23]

29 minutes ago, geekreef_05 said:

Unlikely your hammer survives. That does not look good. Likely brown jelly. 

 

Sorry dude.

Didn’t want to think the worse but def i tell seems like it from everything the net has showed…..any thoughts what caused this? My water parameters have been pretty good. The trials and tribulations of the hobby i suppose 

[fenderchamp]

was it exposed to a lot of flow or banged around?  How long have you had it?

[mcarroll]

That *looks like* a VERY unhappy (maybe dead) Hammer that's in the process of STN/RTN. (I think the "jelly" is just opportunistic bacterial over growth from the tissue breakdown that's happening.)  At least from the photo it doesn't look like there's much tissue left.

 

Something like this "usually" happens due either to handling problems or tank problems.  

 

Euphyllia like this are a large fleshy coral on a razor sharp skeleton, so they can easily be over-handled causing them internal damage without immediately-apparent external signs.  

 

The main tank problem that affects them is lack of nutrition...most often that takes the shape of nutrient levels (NO3/PO4) being too low, or even zero.  (See this post.)  All corals are hard to feed, and it's difficult to know if they are eating....so providing them dissolved nutrients is usually of utmost importance in a home reef.

 

Often those two are both happening...damage from handling AND starvation.  A terrible combo.

 

4 hours ago, Luism23 said:

My water parameters have been pretty good.

How were nitrate and phosphate levels, specifically?  The "ideal" range would be NO3 ≥ 5 and PO4 ≥ 0.05.

 

Also, does the tank host any significant number of soft corals?  Coral warfare is a (usually distant) #3 reason corals like this would waste away like this.

[Luism23]

1 hour ago, mcarroll said:

That *looks like* a VERY unhappy (maybe dead) Hammer that's in the process of STN/RTN. (I think the "jelly" is just opportunistic bacterial over growth from the tissue breakdown that's happening.)  At least from the photo it doesn't look like there's much tissue left.

 

Something like this "usually" happens due either to handling problems or tank problems.  

 

Euphyllia like this are a large fleshy coral on a razor sharp skeleton, so they can easily be over-handled causing them internal damage without immediately-apparent external signs.  

 

The main tank problem that affects them is lack of nutrition...most often that takes the shape of nutrient levels (NO3/PO4) being too low, or even zero.  (See this post.)  All corals are hard to feed, and it's difficult to know if they are eating....so providing them dissolved nutrients is usually of utmost importance in a home reef.

 

Often those two are both happening...damage from handling AND starvation.  A terrible combo.

 

How were nitrate and phosphate levels, specifically?  The "ideal" range would be NO3 ≥ 5 and PO4 ≥ 0.05.

 

Also, does the tank host any significant number of soft corals?  Coral warfare is a (usually distant) #3 reason corals like this would waste away like this.

Hey there. So i can assure you it wouldn’t be handling at least from myself since that hammer was my first coral frag about 4 weeks ago tomorrow. I started feeding reef roids twice a week. Other corals in the tank are pulsing Xenia far away from this , new zoa on bottom rock, gsp on back glass and the Hollywood stunner chalice on the sand bed.  The closest other coral is a Duncan which you will see in the attached picture. Please see my last water test at my lfs from last Wednesday. As far as the handling question would the cleaner shrimp or any of my 3 fish mess with the hammer at night? I have a clown, blue damsel and cardinal fish. I can tell you when i started the reef roid i was spot feeding the Duncan and the hammer and you can definitely tell the hammer was eating. Keep in mind from this last picture i dosed magnesium. Will be going tomorrow to lfs for another test. In the meantime i took out the hammer and said my goodbyes in case it was BJD. 

[Luism23]

2 hours ago, fenderchamp said:

was it exposed to a lot of flow or banged around?  How long have you had it?

So i did get a new return pump last week and was playing around and fine tuning the flow out of both my nozzles….think this could have done it? The timing makes freaking sense! 

[mcarroll]

23 minutes ago, Luism23 said:

So i can assure you it wouldn’t be handling at least from myself since that hammer was my first coral frag about 4 weeks ago tomorrow.

It could easily have happened before you got it/during acquisition, if you think other explanations don't make sense.

 

24 minutes ago, Luism23 said:

Other corals in the tank are pulsing Xenia far away from this , new zoa on bottom rock, gsp on back glass

It's one of the less likely possibilities, as I said already, but soft corals DO exude chemicals to compete with stony corals....sometimes in vicious/lethal ways.  If you've ruled out other possible explanations for the Hammer's demise, or want to take a comprehensive response, then running some activated carbon would be a smart hedge against this.

 

30 minutes ago, Luism23 said:

As far as the handling question would the cleaner shrimp or any of my 3 fish mess with the hammer at night?

Shrimp maybe...especially if the coral had food in its belly AND the shrimp was hungry.   Not sure that really looks like what this coral has been up against tho....at least IMO.

 

33 minutes ago, Luism23 said:

. Keep in mind from this last picture i dosed magnesium.

Are these numbers typical of what the tank has been seeing in terms of NO3 (nitrate) and PO4 (phosphate)?

[Luism23]

14 minutes ago, mcarroll said:

It could easily have happened before you got it/during acquisition, if you think other explanations don't make sense.

 

It's one of the less likely possibilities, as I said already, but soft corals DO exude chemicals to compete with stony corals....sometimes in vicious/lethal ways.  If you've ruled out other possible explanations for the Hammer's demise, or want to take a comprehensive response, then running some activated carbon would be a smart hedge against this.

 

Shrimp maybe...especially if the coral had food in its belly AND the shrimp was hungry.   Not sure that really looks like what this coral has been up against tho....at least IMO.

 

Are these numbers typical of what the tank has been seeing in terms of NO3 (nitrate) and PO4 (phosphate)?

So as far as phosphate this has been the average. Nitrate this is the highest figure I’ve had. Another thing that i think could have done it is when I put the new return pump a week ago i was messing with the flows of the dual return nozzle. Maybe it didn’t like the flow? 

[fenderchamp]

Quote

 Another thing that i think could have done it is when I put the new return pump a week ago i was messing with the flows of the dual return nozzle. Maybe it didn’t like the flow? 

 

It's not so much a matter if it liked the flow or not, but if it got thrashed hard enough to do some tissue damage.  As noted above, it could have been damaged before you got it.  One thing's for sure, when the LFS shows you the hot new frags they just got in, don't buy those, buy something they've had around for months that is thriving, or buy something they bought from another local reefer. 

Corals, and all sea creatures can get pretty messed up by shipping and handling, they'll last just long enough to outlast the live guarantee.  If a typical branching hammer hasn't been mishandled and you aren't thrashing it or doing something silly, it should be a pretty tough customer and a prolific grower.  I've never seen any of my hammers stuff their guts either, Duncans yes, hammers not some much.  I somehow doubt your fish or your shrimp were the issue.

 

 

 

 

[geekreef_05]

2 hours ago, Luism23 said:

Hey there. So i can assure you it wouldn’t be handling at least from myself since that hammer was my first coral frag about 4 weeks ago tomorrow. I started feeding reef roids twice a week. Other corals in the tank are pulsing Xenia far away from this , new zoa on bottom rock, gsp on back glass and the Hollywood stunner chalice on the sand bed.  The closest other coral is a Duncan which you will see in the attached picture. Please see my last water test at my lfs from last Wednesday. As far as the handling question would the cleaner shrimp or any of my 3 fish mess with the hammer at night? I have a clown, blue damsel and cardinal fish. I can tell you when i started the reef roid i was spot feeding the Duncan and the hammer and you can definitely tell the hammer was eating. Keep in mind from this last picture i dosed magnesium. Will be going tomorrow to lfs for another test. In the meantime i took out the hammer and said my goodbyes in case it was BJD. 

 

 

Oh dude your parameters are not great. 

 

Both pH and ammonia are approaching dangerous levels. 

 

Mg is low for LPS. 

 

Why does ALK say 137?! Whats that in normal ALK metrics? Is it 13.7? 

 

I recommend balancing your parameters before attempting more coral. 

[mcarroll]

14 hours ago, Luism23 said:

So as far as phosphate this has been the average. Nitrate this is the highest figure I’ve had. Another thing that i think could have done it is when I put the new return pump a week ago i was messing with the flows of the dual return nozzle. Maybe it didn’t like the flow? 

Those numbers are OK, but I'm in agreement with others that something is off with the pH and ammonia numbers.

 

If there's anything happy in the tank, I'll guess that ammonia number ("AMMO") is either a false positive OR not measuring what we think it is.  Any ideas?  

 

A new return pump and one dying frag shouldn't be able to have that effect.  Was there possibly fish food (or something) in your sample that you took to the LFS? 

 

Also, how old is this tank?

[Luism23]

10 hours ago, mcarroll said:

Those numbers are OK, but I'm in agreement with others that something is off with the pH and ammonia numbers.

 

If there's anything happy in the tank, I'll guess that ammonia number ("AMMO") is either a false positive OR not measuring what we think it is.  Any ideas?  

 

A new return pump and one dying frag shouldn't be able to have that effect.  Was there possibly fish food (or something) in your sample that you took to the LFS? 

 

Also, how old is this tank?

So I went today to the lfs and their aquaspin machine was down. I’m going to go back Friday and retest and see what the numbers are doing. I have an api ammonia kit so i will be testing at home to make sure ammonia is in line. I’m changing the sock filter every Friday (filter Fridays) should i change twice a week instead? Tank is officially 6 weeks this week. As mentioned no more corals will be coming in for a while until i get things to stabilize. I mentioned to my lfs guy that my GSP is thriving and blooming nicely, he mentioned that GSP are good barometers of tanks conditions, thoughts on this? 

[mcarroll]

So....if pH and AMMO numbers are correct the tank is apparently not done cycling – would that make any sense?  Six weeks is usually more than enough time even if you do nothing at all to assist the cycle other than add animals feed them....so it seems surprising to me, for what that's worth.  (I'm not there. 😉)

 

We can also use those numbers a bit further...which will make sense out of why other things in the tank might not be more unhappy than they are:

 

(pls check my math 🧮)

 

Data...

• 78.8ºF (Assuming tank temp.)
• 7.6 pH 
• 0.20 ppm Ammonia (assuming "AMMO" = NH4, total ammonia; aka ammonium)
• 0.0236 – NH3 multiplier (Link)

 

0.20 * 0.236 = 0.00472 – the fraction of your sample that would be NH3 (toxic) under tank conditions.  

 

I.e.  0.47% of your ammonia would be in NH3 form.  

 

0.0047 x 0.20 ppm = 0.00094 ppm NH3 (toxic ammonia).

 

1.0 ppm NO3 is considered lethal; 0.5 ppm is considered sublethal.

 

So at .00094 ppm your NH3 would be well under BOTH thresholds for toxic ammonia, by orders of magnitude, at that tank temp and pH.

 

The fraction of NH3 will be higher if pH goes up (eg water changes, diurnal peaks in pH, et al) or temperature goes up.

 

For example, chasing pH up to 8.0 would change the multiplier to 0.0574, or 5.7% NH3.  This would translate to 0.012 ppm of NH3.  Quite a bit more NH3, but still an order of magnitude under the action level.  

 

Point being, eliminate the ammonia (if test #'s are real) BEFORE you fix anything else like pH.  (A *big* water change would work.)  

 

BTW, pH isn't really an issue for anything at 7.6, but I'm guessing that number is not representative of what your tank runs at since your test sample in the SpinStream isn't totally fresh by the time it's analyzed at the store.  

 

An at-home pH test (any type, even dip tests) would tell you better – plus it's useful for you to have day- and night-time values for pH if you're going to track it at all.  Likewise, I'd get yourself a Seachem AmmoAlert so you can easily monitor ammonia going forward.

 

BTW, corals seem to eat ammonia in preference to other dissolved nitrogen sources, including nitrate.  So under your tank conditions assumed above, most corals ought to be loving life.  (Not so much if you had lower/zero PO4 levels, but that's another scenario, not yours.)

 

I (still) think the Hammer sustained some kind of damage unrelated to water parameters in your tank (ie from handling; didn't have to be you)...it's possible that the shrimp "helped things along" by picking, though it seems like there'd be more tissue missing if he were involved. 🤷‍♂️

 

Hopefully you'll sort out the ammonia (mystery?) soon enough!  👍

[Luism23]

On 2/22/2024 at 4:06 AM, mcarroll said:

So....if pH and AMMO numbers are correct the tank is apparently not done cycling – would that make any sense?  Six weeks is usually more than enough time even if you do nothing at all to assist the cycle other than add animals feed them....so it seems surprising to me, for what that's worth.  (I'm not there. 😉)

 

We can also use those numbers a bit further...which will make sense out of why other things in the tank might not be more unhappy than they are:

 

(pls check my math 🧮)

 

Data...

• 78.8ºF (Assuming tank temp.)
• 7.6 pH 
• 0.20 ppm Ammonia (assuming "AMMO" = NH4, total ammonia; aka ammonium)
• 0.0236 – NH3 multiplier (Link)

 

0.20 * 0.236 = 0.00472 – the fraction of your sample that would be NH3 (toxic) under tank conditions.  

 

I.e.  0.47% of your ammonia would be in NH3 form.  

 

0.0047 x 0.20 ppm = 0.00094 ppm NH3 (toxic ammonia).

 

1.0 ppm NO3 is considered lethal; 0.5 ppm is considered sublethal.

 

So at .00094 ppm your NH3 would be well under BOTH thresholds for toxic ammonia, by orders of magnitude, at that tank temp and pH.

 

The fraction of NH3 will be higher if pH goes up (eg water changes, diurnal peaks in pH, et al) or temperature goes up.

 

For example, chasing pH up to 8.0 would change the multiplier to 0.0574, or 5.7% NH3.  This would translate to 0.012 ppm of NH3.  Quite a bit more NH3, but still an order of magnitude under the action level.  

 

Point being, eliminate the ammonia (if test #'s are real) BEFORE you fix anything else like pH.  (A *big* water change would work.)  

 

BTW, pH isn't really an issue for anything at 7.6, but I'm guessing that number is not representative of what your tank runs at since your test sample in the SpinStream isn't totally fresh by the time it's analyzed at the store.  

 

An at-home pH test (any type, even dip tests) would tell you better – plus it's useful for you to have day- and night-time values for pH if you're going to track it at all.  Likewise, I'd get yourself a Seachem AmmoAlert so you can easily monitor ammonia going forward.

 

BTW, corals seem to eat ammonia in preference to other dissolved nitrogen sources, including nitrate.  So under your tank conditions assumed above, most corals ought to be loving life.  (Not so much if you had lower/zero PO4 levels, but that's another scenario, not yours.)

 

I (still) think the Hammer sustained some kind of damage unrelated to water parameters in your tank (ie from handling; didn't have to be you)...it's possible that the shrimp "helped things along" by picking, though it seems like there'd be more tissue missing if he were involved. 🤷‍♂️

 

Hopefully you'll sort out the ammonia (mystery?) soon enough!  👍

Brother you need to start a masterclass!!!! Thanks for all the input!