Is this normal in a branching hammer?

[roadster3043]

Greetings.

My current setup is as follows:

10gal. tank
23# Live Rock
Less than 1/2" of sand
Ammonia: 0
Nitrite: 0
Nitrate: 0
Phosphate: 0.1
Temp(daytime): 87.8F
SG: 1.026
Ph: 8.4

One Peppermint Shrimp
Two Emerald Crabs
Several Turbos
One Branching Hammer

I'm spot feeding the hammer with a mush made of brine shrimp, blood worms, daphnia, tiny shrimps, marine flakes, total color marine, phytoplan, spectra pellets and other flakes.

This same mush is used to feed the peppermint shrimp, etc.

OK, no to the problem? When I spot feed the mush to the hammer it produces a semi-transparent jelly. Is this normal or is it a sing of rejection of the food?

Thank you.

roadster3043

PS. I did a search on the forums regading this but didn't find anything similar.

[ReefDiver]

Hola JuanMa!

Don't know what you mean by a "semi transparent jelly"? Where is this being "produced"? What happens to it after it is produced? Does the tank cloud up?

Looking over your tank parameters, I would be worried about your tank temperature! 87.8 degrees is very high and I would recommend that you try to keep it between 82 to 84 max!

[roadster3043]

Saludos. :-)

Thank you for your prompt reply.

The semi-transparent jelly is being produced on and between the hammers in about a minute after I spot fed it. If I turn off all the water circulation, the jelly looks like it's shooting upwards from the hammers and also drops to the side of the hammers like a blob of "mucus". In this jelly the food is also mixed with it. It looks like a still picture when you look at the jelly since it doesn't move when there is no water circulation.

When I turn back on the water circulation, the jelly starts to come off the hammer and either gets sucked up by the power heads and mixes with the water, or gets into the HOB Filter, or gets stuck on a piece of rock and later when I come back it's no longer there.

The tank doesn't cloud up at all since the jelly is transparent.

The high temperature I believe it's caused by the lghting being too near the water surface(two 63W PC daylight and actinic). This temperature is detected during the daytime only.

I've been planning on raising it about 6" but don't know of a good alternative to raise it. Perhaps egg crate? Will 6" be enough?


TIA

JuanMa

[EricHugo]

I have never heard of anything like this regarding this transparent jelly produced during feeding. The food mix sounds fine. Does anything eat this jelly when it comes free of the coral?

[roadster3043]

Greetings.

I haven't seen anything eat the jelly so far. I'll see if when I feed it today will do the same thing and try to take a picture.

[Wee Man]

i just got a hammer and he hasnt opened to his full and he wont take any food i spot him with. but he dosnt slime or nething

[roadster3043]

Greetings.

In this picture the water circulation has been turned on after feeding a few mins. ago and the jelly mixed with the food is starting to come off the hammer.

[roadster3043]

In this other picture the jelly mixed with the food has come completely off. What I did noticed today from previous feedings is that one of the hammers ruptured and a dark coffee colored stain near its mouth.

This didn't happen in previous feedings. Could it be that the food is "burning" the hammer?

TIA

[Chrismo]

My branching hammer sometimes produced a thin sheet of mucus when I fed it things it didnt like. But not nearly as much as yours. It would also produce exess mucus if my bubble coral which was upstream if it prouced the mucus first.

If I were you, I would try and get my temperature down. It could be overly sensative because it's so warm. A fan would lower your temperature.
But IMO, more important than lowering it, is make it stable. If your lights go out and the temperature drops from 87 to 78 at night (if thats what your heater is set to), I would guess the daily TRANSITION of cold to hot would be more upsetting than a constant high temperature. If you set your heater closer to your maximum temperature, to give your corals a chance at adapting to the heat. But try and bring the temp down to 84 at least, with a fan that comes on when your light come on... Fans are great.

Good luck!

[roadster3043]

Greetings.

I have my heater set at 82F. I'll see if by placing the hood higher will give me a more cooler and stable temperature.

What kind of fans are mostly recommended and where can I buy them?

TIA

[EricHugo]

I also suspect this is temperatue and not food related, and there may be some zoox release, maybe brown jelly, I just don't know, but the coral looks generally bad from what I can see. Usually, 4" muffin fans are used, but any fan will do if applied properly.

[roadster3043]

Greetings.

If it were temperature related, shouldn't it be releasing the jelly without feeding?

TIA

[roadster3043]

Here it the hood raised with egg crate 4 inches, I think I over did it. :(

I'm going to monitor the water temp to see if it is at 82F.

Should I lower the hood to 3 or 2 1/2 inches? The tank looks less bright at the current height. :(

TIA

[absolut]

Just a thought, but

What kind of heater do you have? I have a Rena submearsable heater on one of my freshwater tanks and the wattage is quite a bit more than what is needed for the tank. Anyways when I set it @ 74-75 the actual water temp is kept at a stable 78 deg.
I dont know if it is the overwattage or a poorly calibrated internal temp gauge inside the heater, but it has worked this way for years now. Maybe setting your temp lower on the heater might change things, it's always worth a try.:smokin:

[tryingsalt]

I have a hammer also. Today is why I'm writting, I have notice a release of some slimmy substance from one of its mouths. It looks like that slimmy algee stuff.. So is this good or bad? Plus the only thing I have been feeding my corals is DT's and ESV Phytoplankton. Is this OK?

[roadster3043]

Absolut.

I have a Visi-Therm 100W and the temp with the light off for a few hours is between 80 to 84F. I have it set at 82F. I used the probe in my digital thermometer and placed it on top of the hood during the day time and it will give me a reading of 100F or a bit more.

So now I will be doing some temp tests with the light hood at 4 inches high to see at what temp the water gets. If I don't see any changes in a "stable" temp 80-84F, I will lower a bit more the hood so there is more light in the tank and keep monitoring the temp to see the changes.

[EricHugo]

Point for me is I don;t know what's causing this, but until some of the other issues are taken care of and the environment is ideal, its will be hard to say what the causative factor is.

To the other post...stony corals don't eat phytoplankton for the most part.

[Chrismo]

You can get fans at radio shack.
Or just get a normal house fan and point it at your tank. If there is much of an opening at all in the hood, you'll get lots of air cooling.

I feed my hammer little bits of shrimp, or brine shrimp, or even flake.

[roadster3043]

Greetings.

I verified my nano's temp today and it is at 84.7F with the hood raised at 4 inches(see picture on previous post). I will do some tweaking of the heater to set it at 82F. No fans are being used yet.

[roadster3043]

Greetings.

Well. I will definitely have to get some fans for it. The temp of the tank was at 85.somethingF with the heater turned off.

[roadster3043]

Greetings everyone.

Thank you all for your help and suggestions.

My hammer is doing a lot better and it has a tan/green color to it, looks a lot more healthy and the branches look thicker and longer. I stop feeding it the mush that I had and started using grinded dry food. Apparently the mush had something that was hurting the hammer, so to speak.

On the same piece of coral in which is the hammer is, there is a smaller one on the opposite end facing to the left and the large one facing upward to the light.

I was wondering if I could frag the hammer so that the little one gets better light, or should I wait more?

Thank you.

[Chrismo]

you can shave those wee little ones off with a razor. Cut under the root of the hammer if you can, they are very easy to kill when that small.

Even harder then cutting the frag out, is gluing it someplace new... Such a tiny piece is hard to fiddle with without killing it.

I think you should leave it alone till it gets the size of a quarter at least. Feed it tiny stuff and it'll probobly make do without much light. Some of my little ones dont get much light, but grow just as fast as ones that get lots of light.

Makes me feel like the new buds arent as dependent on photosynthesis as much as when they get bigger.

Chrismo

[roadster3043]

Thanks. :D