Wall Hammer Dieing pics posted

Whats wrong with this wall hammer? It looked a little stressed (possibly from the shrooms being so close). We moved the mushrooms a little further away. Now are hammer is dieing. I had a zoa frag (20 heads) fall onto the hammer at night and it stayed there for maybe 12 hours. Other than the mushrooms being close or the zoas, I don't know why its dieing. Help please.











This is what the scape looked like a week ago when the hammer looked fine. This is how far the mushrooms were from it. The reason I think it may be the shrooms is because we had a bubble yumma mushroom kill part of another lps coral we had.


THis is the tank in question. Please let me know what you guys think is wrong and caused this problem. Thanks

 

IMO Euphyllias can fall victim to bacterial infections and tissue loss after injury, especially 12 hours. Watch for Brown jelly disease, and try not to move it except to move it away from other corals.

You can try dipping and others will probably suggest that, but that's risky IMO.

Good luck, you have a nice mixed reef.

 

Thanks for the reply. If this happens after injurty, what could have injured it? The mushrooms? I did pick it up and try to find a new home for it when it was deflated and i may have rubbed some of the tissue with my hand.

Are zoas capable of hurting or killing a wall hammer? Same with mushrooms?

 

My Duncan does not like to touch zoanthids or mushroom, it retracts and gets burned looking tips. I do imagine that some type of chemical or mechanical warfare was going on. Euphyllia are one of the LPS that has a greater potential for bacterial and protozoan infections after any injury to the tissue IME, even if that injury was just falling.

 

I would bet every thing in my 45 gallon coral tank that your problem stems from that large leather coral, or other coral with in 8 inches, provided water quality is good and the coral was good from the get go. Shrooms would loose to a healthy euphillia quickly.

yea, I know, every LFS states leathers are harmless for the most part- wrong.

Euphillia loves to extend at night- and leathers do not take well to this- at all, they fight back.

Ususally once any euphillia starts to decline it means the end of the coral, can you move it as far away from ANY of the other corals as possible- isolation? Or perhaps another tank? Once they release the "brown jelly" that Coraliine spoke of, that is pretty much it- and this can harm other critters in your tank.

Be wary of this.

 

Based on the pictures shown, do you think the coral will die? The bottom portion of the coral doesn't look as bad as the top. Still holding together well, while the top portion is falling apart. Will the bottom portion possibly stay alive?

 

Usually, but not always, with euphillia, the entire colony goes if only a portion dies- I dont know why this is scientifically, but I suspect what ever killed the weaker portion eventually kills the rest over time.

Perhaps what Coralline suspected- some type of infection.

 

Ok, well the bottom still looks a lot better than the top. We will hope for the best.

I moved the wall hammer from the 90G tank to our 30G tank. I don't want to keep it in the 90G since we have 30+ heads of other LPS's in there. THe 30G has 4 t5 bulbs and no other lps's. Just zoas and mushrooms.

I don't think that big leather coral could be the culprit. That huge leather coral is about 2 feet away from the wall hammer. However, there is a kenya tree right next to the wall hammer.