Hammer Killing my fish

[daaaaaan]

Ive recently added a hammer to my 1 year old nano tank....its small, about 3" accross, I have it away from all other corals...but Ive added this about a week ago, and yesteray I woke up to a dead Mandiran Goby, and now today I wake up to a dead cleaner shrimp.....I just did a water change, the water is perfect:

Ammonia: 0
Nitrate: 0
Nitrite: 0
Phosphate: 0 to extremly low
Clacium: 450

All my other corals are open and very happy, and my 2 clown fish and cardinal seem to be doing just fine.....

Is there any chance this hammer killed both my shrimp and mandiran?

[Travis L. Stevens]

Most likely not. The Mandarin probably died of starvation. Any released ammonia from the decomposition (detectable or not) may have, in turn, killed the shrimp.

[David Grigor]

Doubtful bot not impossible. While I'm sure hammer packs a powerful punch to very small items, likely not powerful enough to kill a healthy fish. Perhaps a fish in a very weekened condition would be effected.

[daaaaaan]

yea, that is what i thought....neither of my fish were weak...the shrimp ate everything that hit the tank, and would bite my arm anytime I stuck it in the tank...he molted 2 times in the past 2 months, grew like crazy...same with the mandarin, when I got him he was skinny, after about 2 months in my tank, he got nice and plump....(had tons of copods for him to eat)

I have no idea what happened...I did clean my sandbed, and thought maybe I sturred up some phosphate, but I dont have any on my readings....

Ugh.

[BLANKENSHIP76]

I have heard you need at least 50-75 lbs of live rock with pods galore to keep a healthy mandarin unless you are adding pods. I have one in my 120, and everyone I have talked to says that I shouldn't get another and I have probably 140lbs of live rock. Just my .02!

[ACBlinky]

It's possible, but I'd look for other causes first. My bubble coral killed and ate a cleaner shrimp when it tried to steal the bubble's meal, but I believe bubbles have much stronger stings than euphyllia. Hammers do pack a punch (I get a rash any time I go near one), but mine never bother anything, even if they're harassed -- my cleaner shrimp used to sit on top of my wall hammer and steal its food :rolleyes:.

[Serioussnaps]

my cleaner used to crawl all over frogspawns and hammers so i doubt it....you may want to look elsewhere....

ammonia as mentioned above

[theyeg2]

I have had multiple anchors and frogspawns continuously for 2 1/2 years and never suspected them of killing/hurting one of my fish or shrimp. As others have said, my tangs and shrimp steal food from them.