[pwlong19]

I have a hammer coral that I have had for almost two years. No problems until this weekend. Did a water change and noticed a section in the back was receded. Upon closer inspection, I noticed some damage. I blew off the affected area and some small pieces came off from the inner and outer section of skeleton. Now some small areas of skeleton are visible and that area has not opened. I may have brushed against that area with my arm while removing the dreaded grape caulerpa, but it shouldn't have done that much damage if I did.
My question, should I continue to blow off the affected area with baster and hope for the best? Will I need to think about cutting off the affected area so that it doesn't affect the whole coral? Anyone know what I should be watching for or have a similar experience?
Salinity was a little high at 1.026(usually1.025) before water change. All other parameters are OK. No other problems in tank.

TIA

Phil

[Anthony Calfo]

Phil,

You sound like you have a pretty good clue about where you need to go with this hammer. But first, rest assured that your SG of 1.026 was not harmful at all nor was it likely that your brush with the animal (short of tearing tissue that you would have noticed). In fact, it is not clear at all what caused the necrosis but we definitely do want to discover that. (If that caulerpa that you removed had been in contact with the skeleton, by the way... there is a good culprit. Macros secrete noxious and damagingchemicals to burn back organics (including some coral tissue) for the securement of their holdfasts... that could easily have started the infection).

But first... handling the animal: because of the history of contagious infection in this family (some infections are highly dangerouse to like genera and even some species outside of the family) you do not want to allow the liberated pieces of necrotic tissue to drift in the tank... it is just not good husbandry. The first step is damage control. The infection has to be assessed and stopped hopefully in the tank to minimze stress to the hammer. If you have to remove or sacrifice the animal for the greater good, however, then so be it. You probably have heard of brown jelly infections (formerly suspected of being protozoan in nature). If you notice rapid necrosis combined with a hovering/gelatinous brown film over infected areas... remove the piece immediately by halting the current and bagging the animal underwater to reduce the spread of contagious tissue in the drift. Use the animal in quarantine to experiment judiciously with aggressive fragging manuevers that you probably never had the gutus to do on a healthy piece <smile>. Use saws or poultry shears to excise infected portions and raise redox in the system and other antiseptic maneuvers (ozone, iodine, etc) and hope for the best.

But let's assume that you simply have a small infection that is not contagious or spreading rapidly. You have a couple of options next: in a perfect world the piece will be small enough and still hardy enough to be removed ina bowl or bucket of aquarium water for some work in the vessel as a bath outside of the tank. In a bath, you'll want to gently scrub into healthy tissue with a soft bristled brush to remove all necrotic mass and slightly abrade the nearest healthy tissue with the hope of stimulating healing (honestly unlikely... more likely to grow over than recover lost skleleton). Bath water should be discarded, the animal rinsed and then returned to the tank. If enough tissue is missing that you want to saw (pref) or break the skeleton for aesthetics... do so at this time. If the animal cannot be removed from the tank, use a slow siphon tube with a soft toothbrush banded or tied in extension over the mouth to gently and concurrently scrub and siphon the necrotic tissue away. In either case... after the proceedure is done... maintain good water quality of course. Smaller, more frequent iodine doses will help redox potential and may be antiseptic. Aggresive protein simming, etc.

It really is nothing much to worry about. Quite frankly, the animal will be nicely stable or largely dead within a week. Most likley it will be fine. Brown jelly infections occur with folks bringing in new coral without quaranting them first. And nobody I know would risk thousands of dollars in coral and hundreds of precious lives in their reef collections with a piece of coral purchased at the LFS and placed right in their tank...hehehe. To quote a marine aquariology pioneer hero of mine... putting a non-quarantined fish or coral into and established display is like having group sex with drug addicts. On that note...adieu

[bongobrian]

Welcome to Reefland to you both!

First of all, hammer corals are extremely touchy, as are most euphyllia corals IMO. Sometimes you don't even have to change anything in the tank, and they just seem to pick a day to start dying. It's hard to say if the SG of 1.026 would be harmful because it also depends on the temperature in relation to the SG. So, what is the temp of your tank? What type of hammer is this exactly? is this a branched type with several different colonies? if so, you may be in luck. If the colony is all on one skeleton, it's going to be much harder to save it. I would follow Anthony's advice on doing the "bath" technique. I would like to add one more step though. Once you have the coral in a seperate container with some tank water, add some iodine to the water and let the coral soak for an hour. Do this every day for a week or two. Doing an "iodine dip" allows the coral to sit in a solution with a high concentration of iodine, the natural antibiotic for corals. This will help the coral on it's way to healing itself. I make a bowl of 1/2 gallon of tank water and 3 drops of Lugol's iodine. Yours may be different depending on what type of iodine you use. I've had very good results doing this technique and it has saved many of my corals from certain doom.

I would also agree with Anthony that you should not blow off the dead tissue while the coral is in the tank. You're just adding ammonia to the tank. If this is the branched type of hammer, I would break off the branch that is dying. Keep a close eye on the other sections of the coral to see if it starts seperating from the skeleton. Since this coral has been well established in your tank for 2 years, I think you have a pretty good chance of saving it. Good luck!

[Anthony Calfo]

Brian,

Thanks kindly for the welcome! I noticed that you are from Ann Arbor Michigan.

That is ground zero for the Midwest Marine Conference this March 23rd.

Are you a MASM member?

I'll be giving a presentation then with Eric B., Larry and Joe Lichtenbert... perhaps I'll have the pleasure of meeting you and there?

I've already met some other really great folks from your club/region ionline.

I'm looking forward to the visit.

[bongobrian]

Anthony, I am not a member of MASM but it sounds interesting. Is it some sort of reef club? That's awesome that you are giving a presentation at this conference. I would definitely be interested in going. I would like to get more information on it if you have it. There are several other members on this board from the south-eastern Michigan area, and I'm sure they would also be interested. Thanks Anthony and good luck at the conference.

[Anthony Calfo]

Brian, et al.

My apologies... I forgot to include the hostclub's Website (www.masm.org). Some really great people involved! Follow the link for conferences on the main page.

In light of the recent complications with the national conferences (like MACNA/MASNA)... smaller regional conferences like this one are critical and evolving into being THE cutting edge place for current information and technolgy in the reef aquariology industry. Essentially, you have the best aquarists, academics and industry professionals all coming together for fellowship and education. It is the single best place to network with people sharing your same interests to learn about new techniques, wholesalers, distributors, etc. Plus... they are likely to have a killer raffle too (most of these conferences do).

So heads up to everyone within roadtrip distance <smile>! And if you haven't ever been to Dick Perrin's coral greenhouse in Romulus Michigan... it is within 40 minutes. Simply a must!

[pwlong19]

Anthony and Brian,
The bath idea sounds good. I can also assess the damage much better. I noticed one of my other LPS last night with its tentacles near the Hammer. The tank currents were such that it was able to get near. I am in the process of repositioning in the tank to prevent further occurances. The Hammer is one big polyp, ie harder to frag. I definitely don't relish the thought of major surgery but I should be able to save it based on what you both have suggested. Thanks.
Phil

[organicreefer]

hey how about a coral/ propagation forum with resident specialist anthony calfo? kinda like "ask dr ron",but it could be" inquire with anthony" j/k(no im not im completely serious)

[Anthony Calfo]

organicreefer,

actually, it is an honor to even hear it said in jest. That anyone should ever care to hear one's opinion is truly a compliment. I am grateful for all of the friends and aquarists that have told me how much they appreciated my work.

As soon as I get the second volume of the Book of Coral Propagation out of the way, I'll have more time to surf and participate on the board<wink>.

[scubadude]

Originally posted by organicreefer
hey how about a coral/ propagation forum with resident specialist anthony calfo?

An awesome Idea IMO!!

Originally posted by Anthony Calfo
As soon as I get the second volume of the Book of Coral Propagation out of the way, I'll have more time to surf and participate on the board

Oh you just had to do this to me didnt ya.....Ok so when approximately are we looking at the ETA on this one? Can I go ahead and buy the rough draft

So heads up to everyone within roadtrip distance <smile>! And if you haven't ever been to Dick Perrin's coral greenhouse in Romulus Michigan... it is within 40 minutes. Simply a must!

[bongobrian]

I'm probably 15-20 minutes from Romulus!

[Anthony Calfo]

Hehehe... no promises on ETA for Volume 2 just yet. It seems like when an author does that it automatically jinxes the final run for another 6-12 months!

But thanks for the interest! Some of what I wrote in the first volume must have been coherent<smile>