Hammer coral help please!

[Hockey0000325]

Hey guys,

Well I purchased my first coral 2 days ago and it is a hammer coral. The first night I placed in tank it opened up fully with lights on. When the lights went off it retreated back inside itself and has stayed that way since. I was wondering what is causing this? I am doing another water change today with Reef Crystals but up till this point I have been using Instant ocean. So I do think my calcium is a tad low but would this cause the coral to basically appear dead?

[Hockey0000325]

Water parameters are all good ammonia 0, nitrites 0, nitrates 0.

[patsfan1130]

we need to know your perams before we can offer help. It is not uncommon for my LPS to recede for a day or so from time to time but I am not saying that is what's going on here. Do some tests (PH,SG,CA,ALK,MG,PO4,trate,trite) Is this a newly setup tank?

[Hockey0000325]

yea I have to run my tests salinity is at 1.024

[DC_40gallon]

My frogspawn did that. Took 3 weeks to get that guy to turn around.

He was locked in so tight that even with close up pics everyone here thought it was dead.


I lowered mine into the sand so it could get the lead amount of light possible and 3-4 weeks later it started to show signs of life again.

[romsoccer12]

mind getting a picture? where is it placed? is it bleached at all?

[KRAZ4REEFS]

I would also suggest a full set of tests, sal is tad low 1.025-1.026 would better but not your problem, calcium will not cause this either. May be just that its new to the tank and needs time to acclimate for a while. Do you have it under bright light, if so it may not be used to it if it were in a dark tank before, may have to put it under an overhang and bring it out over a couple of weeks. May just need to be left alone, sometimes they take a while to get used to your tank conditions. It's completly normal for them to pull in after the lights go out, should come out during the day though. Do some tests and get back to us.