Hammer and Frogspawn help

[Youngster Dan]

My hammer coral started to slowly (one head first followed by the other) not fully expand, and continues to decline. I at first thought it had to do with flow, then maybe the lighting and have moved it around various places in the tank with no luck. Every coral in my tank seems to be fine so I didn't jump at thinking it was a water issue, but now my frogspawn is starting to slowly decline one head at a time as well.

I must admit I am bad with testing my water parameters on a consistent basis, so this problem is most likely a water parameter issue. I decided to check a week ago, noticed my calcium was low and so I have started to dose using Seachem reef advantage calcium and and reef builder for alkalinity. I have never dosed as my weekly water changes seemed (to me anyways) to keep everything happy.

As of today my water parameters are as follows:

Temp: 84
Nitrate, Ammonia, Phosphate: 0 (or at least what my tests say)
Calcium: 400
Alk: 8 dkh
Mg: 1410

Lighting: 2 x 96 watt power compact, with one 10 000K and one actinic.
Flow: Koralia 3 powerhead

So my thinking is that my calcium has been low, and has been the culprit. All of my other LPS corals (acan, galaxy, favia, brain, and trumpet) look fine and continue to grow. Which is why I have not jumped to be better at maintaining my alk and calcium. Perhaps the other LPS have not shown stress as they all seem to readily accept mysis and I often spot feed them when I feed my suncoral whereas the frogspawn and hammer never seem to grab the mysis.

All my softies are fine and grow like crazy.

What does everyone think is up?

[Chaloupa]

temp is a bit high.....when the heads go is there a brown gooey substance left behind?

If yes, you have brown jelly disease and it's no fun..I'll post info for that if you have that...

If no, hmmmmm temperature swings? Poor water quality?

[miketurn]

I don't think it would be calcium. Calcium would only really slow the growth down as it wouldnt be able to calcify to create its skeleton, its probably something else. I never dosed or monitored my calcium for over a year and my frogspawn and hammer were fine..they didn't grow at all, but they still survived fine. Once I started monitoring and dosing for all my params they started growing like crazy. I once lost a torch coral to some brown slime disease thing..torches are pretty close to hammers and frogs..do you see and brown slimey stuff on the heads that aren't opening anymore?

[Chaloupa]

Check out brown jelly here...it's bacterial and it's not fun! Trust me, I'm losing hammers, and frogs as we speak, just lost a GORGEOUS Aussie orange torch.......

http://www.athiel.com/lib/bacterial.html

[Youngster Dan]

No brown slime that I can see. From what I seem to gather, my temperature stays around 82 at night and 84 during the middle of the day. That makes sense what you said about the calcium as well, which is again why I haven't really stressed about it, I just really like my frogspawn so once it started to happen to it I thought I might as well figure out what is going on.

Are hammers and frogspawn more sensitive then the other LPS to temp swings?

[Johnny Reefer]

Two things jump out at me.

1). Temp is high. get it down to 78F, IMO.

2). You have no metal halide lighting. Not that I could see your lighting descrip, anyway.

Try lowering the temp first.

HTH,

[Shelley]

Check out brown jelly here...it's bacterial and it's not fun! Trust me, I'm losing hammers, and frogs as we speak, just lost a GORGEOUS Aussie orange torch.......

http://www.athiel.com/lib/bacterial.html

NO!! not the aussie torch you just got?? Jeeze that sucks and I was excited about getting more torches and frogspawns because they didnt have pests like acros do and would still be alive when I looked at the tank in the morning!!

[Chaloupa]

It's one I got a few months ago, never seen one like it and won't again I'm sure! But I do have another that I'm praying I get Chloramphenicol for before it's too late...I'm losing a gorgeous hammer too...dammit...I was doing the same with having some LPS cause they are less probs...not necessarily!

But I couldn't agree more with Johnny Reefer...your temp is too high....you should be down around the 78 mark for sure.....

[Youngster Dan]

Yeah, I have tried to get the temp down. But it seems to get high despite the room temperature never being too hot or anything (now with the cold weather I even open a window that literally drafts right on the tank, and it sure isn't hot out) When it is hot, I am lucky enough that my apartment has air conditioning so it is never too hot inside my place.

By no means can I afford a chiller. As for the metal halides, I was under the impression that I would not need that much light, also I believe that would make my heat issue even worse. I even have a couple sps frags that some people have given me that are alive and appear to be growing, just browned out.

If it was a temperature issue, wouldn't I see an overall decline in the rest of my corals? Not only that, it seems to affect only one head at a time. Because of this I am starting to think it might be brown jelly, or at least something like it.

Chaloupa, how long did the brown jelly take to destroy your corals? Sorry to hear about your losses by the way. That sucks.

And thanks everyone for the responses, I appreciate it :)

[Chaloupa]

Hey Dan...well it goes in spurts...you dip and think you have it under control and then you lose a head...I left it one day with a single head brown jellied...planning on getting it the next day, and the next day half of a nice large colony was gone! It is really fast at times, and really slow...I'm losing heads almost daily, then I'll lose 3-6 at once...it totally sucks. I'm trying to get some Chloramphenicol right now to try. I don't have fish in the tank and I'd rather NOT lose the rest of the corals.

Have you had your water tested? I'd double check it with Safari or something........and I'd try to get that temp down...it's too high. Something is causing your heat to be too high..do you have a heater in the tank? It could be faulty and not heating to what it is supposed to do...just an idea.

[Youngster Dan]

Hmm, that sucks. Is the jelly always very prominent, or will it sometimes be subtle?

It could be the heater, I have it set for 77 degrees and I can see it click on sometimes at night (and as previously mentioned only dips to 82) as the light turns on, but never see it on during the day. I think it could also be a combination of a faulty heater, the powerheads (for flow, skimmer, and phosphate reactor), and the lights as well. As like I said before, it isn't the heat from the room causing it to get that high.

I will get my water double checked as well, seems like a solid idea. As for the heat, a fan is probably a good investment.

[Shelley]

you can set a fan so that it blows kinda over the surface, and use one of those timers that has the little tabs that you push in when you want it on.. that way it can cycle like say 10 minutes on every hour? I have one thats set to go on with the lights and off about 30 minutes after lights out.

Im wondering if you Mg is a little high? Ive never been able to keep mine steady that high so I shoot for about 1350 ish.. Im grasping at straws for you here.

What size tank is it?

[reeferee]

hey dan i have fans, timers, and heaters you can borrow to see if it makes a difference with the temp. let me know?
rick

[Youngster Dan]

This was the very first time I have tested for Mg, so it is very possible, if not very likely that I messed up. I will test to see what it is again, and from what I have heard IO salt tends to have low Mg so it doesn't make sense that mine is not low as well.

Rick thank you very much for the offer, you have a PM :)

[Youngster Dan]

Oh, and my tank is 33 gallon without a sump for the moment. Hope to get my sump and new stand running on it in the near future.