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View Full Version : Branching hammer looking sickly.... need some help on my first LPS.


Radioheadx14
03/13/2008, 04:04 PM
I have had a 6 head branching hammer for 2 weeks and it had full polyp expansion on day one. It came from a tank that was running 400w MHs and it was mid way up the tank... so the guy told me I wouldn't really need to acclimate it since I have a 150w mh. Well it was doing awesome for 2 weeks but when I got home from work today... some of the tenticle things are shriveled up. MOST of them are fully extended but some on a smaller polyp are deflated. Another polyp has the ones that are the outer most deflated.. the ones that would point downward.

I did notice that the ones that are fully inflated are curved today... I changed my bulb from the stock 150hqi current bulb in a sunpod to a phoenix 14k... but the old bulb was only a month or so old. Other than that, its not near any other coral. there is no current thats making it move much.

My parameters as of yesterday:
ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 0
kH 8
Ca 420
Mg 1100
Sg 1.025
temp 79 F
Other than the hammer, Every other coral is fully extended (toadstool, rics, Zoas)
Any Ideas? I'll work on posting a pic

Radioheadx14
03/13/2008, 09:58 PM
Now that the MH light is off... the outer most tenticles on several of the polyps are darker than the center ones, which they were not before... is this a sign of too much light?

They are dark but still green with a purple tip. I dont think its brown jelly because they don't have film on them and the dark color is uniform.

Is this a sign of too much light, polyp splitting or none of the above?

Mental1
03/14/2008, 03:14 PM
Can you post a picture? I am having a hard time picturing the coral from your description. SOmetimes flow to the lower ones can cause them to deflate ...

Radioheadx14
03/14/2008, 04:39 PM
For some reason my camera doesn't want to focus that well....