Hammer coral not opening and losing tissue...

[twychopen]

Again, I am new to this so I am reading up as much as possible. I have a hammer coral that didn't open up today. It also seems to be giving off clear/white tissue or slime. I checked the water late last night and everything seemed to be normal.
Temp 78.9
Salinity 1.022
pH 8.2
Alk 2.72
KH 7.6
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate >20
Phos 0
Calcium 340

I don't have many corals in there at all, in fact these were some testers after my zoas quit opening a few weeks ago. The fish, crabs, snails are all doing fine. Any suggestions?

P.S. I did add some pre-cured live rock (15lbs) on Saturday, but they were fine saturday after and on sunday. I already have 50+lbs of live rock and the system has been up for about 2 months. I checked the water yesterday and everything was fine. No spikes or anything since I added the rock Saturday.

[corruption]

Why are you still running your salinity so low? Corals don't like salinity this low, and fish only tolerate it for so long... get this up to the 1.025-1.026 range You'll see a marked improvement in everything.

-Corruption

[twychopen]

ok, I have 55 gallons total volume. How do I find out how much salt to add?

[corruption]

You need to do it gradually -- do water changes with water at a proper salinity, in small, frequent intervals -- 5-10% every couple days.. After a couple weeks, you should have more or less cycled out the majority of the old water, in place for the salinity you're aiming for..

-Corruption

[Bill S]

What corruption said.

Also, torch/hammer/frogspawn and bubble corals seem to "like" an iodine dip when feeling bad. They will sometimes get overrun with pests (usually planaria), and not open. As I recall, 4 or 5 drops of Lugols in a liter of tank water for 10-15 minutes. With this weather, try and keep the water the same temp. Do NOT further damage the heads.

[firecoral3msd]

Your KH needs to be between 9 and 12. Your calcium is also too low for hard corals. You can also raise the salinity by topping off with salt water with the salinity level of 1.025 or 1.026. KH and calcium can be raised with weekly 10% (5.2g of 55g) water changes. If that doesn't work then I would dose with calcium to raise it to at least 400.

[justahobby]

If you have evaporation you may top off with SW instead of the usual fresh to boost salinity.

You need to do it gradually -- do water changes with water at a proper salinity, in small, frequent intervals -- 5-10% every couple days.. After a couple weeks, you should have more or less cycled out the majority of the old water, in place for the salinity you're aiming for..

-Corruption

[twychopen]

Ok, I will do this. Also, what is the slime stuff coming off of them?

Where can I get lugols or can I use any iodine?

[Bill S]

Got a real fish store near you? Lugols is the recommended product (by Kent Marine). Call around and see what they have. The slime is what is commonly called "brown jelly", which is the tissue sloughing.

[justahobby]

Lugol's is at most LFS's. I think iodine isn't concentrated so the dosing amount would differ.

I suspect your KH is low due to low salinity. Before dosing, Retest after your salinity has reached 1.026

Edit: Man, I keep echoing what others have already posted *sigh* I give up lol.