Dead Hammerhead!!

Question
QUESTION: Hi,
Set up my 1st Marine tank 6weeks ago. I have 6 fsh, 1 shrimp, 6 snails and 3 hermit crabs. Coral: Green anenome, purple mushroom, red mushroom, open brain and a trumpet. Yesterday, I bought a small hammerhead, brought it home, acclimatised it, then positioned it. It hasn't opened, and 24hrs later, looks very white; a few small sweepers appear to be coming from it. but looks dead to me!!
Tank size, 28Gall
Nitrite  0.25ppm  Nitrate 0ppm  Salinity 1.025   Temp' 76f  Ph 7.8
Calcium 480  Alk 12 dkh.
I hope you can help, as all other things in the tank appear to be really happy. Maybe shock? or just a bad coral? I'd appreciate any advice.
Thanks,
Tania

ANSWER: Hello Tania,

Sometimes these hammers go into shock for a bit.  give it some time, (about a week or two.

What type of lights do you have?  Place the hammer a bit lower and hopefully it will relax and get used to things.  But until you see pure skeleton, with NO flesh left, it may make a come back...

Good luck, and please let me know how things work out for you



---------- FOLLOW-UP ----------

QUESTION: Thanks for such a fast reply, very helpful. I am using  T5 lighting, and have now placed the hammer on the base of the tank, on sand... HOPEFULLY THIS WILL BE OKAY?  will let you know how 'we' fare.
Thanks again,
Tania.

Answer
You are welcome, and unfortunately, this last weekend has been miserable, and I didn have time to answer some questions until a few days later...  (I had a flood in my condo, not tank related), so now i am drying out the unit, and getting ready to patch the walls they opened up, and then install floors.  the problem/challenge is that they will have to relocate my tank to put the floors in all over...  this wont be fun...

anyways, please let me know how things progress.

bill

ps  please do not buy any more fish or corals for a bit... you really have a newer tank and it is not capable of susting that much life so, no matter what, youwere bound to have some problems.

You need to keep track of the NITRITE tests/results.  You shouldnt have any nitrites..Please do water changes OFTEN. maybe once a day, or every oter day...

Please read up on 'cycling a saltwater tank' on almost any site/search engine...

but basically the tank needs to grow microscopic biolgical organisms that will process that NITRITE and process it into nitrate which we can deal with either through proper maintenance or with macro algae and other alge process...

good luck and let me know how things progress...

bill