Hammer Coral dying?

I am new to the reef hobby but have been doing freshwater for a year now and just got this tank from craigslist. its a 24 gallon fluval m60. all fish, inverts and coral seem to be doing really well except for one of my hammer corals. I have 2 green hammers that are doing great and 1 orange hammer that never extends and looks like it may be dying. all my parameters seem good and calcium levels are at 440. please help!

 

bleaching, how long have you had tank running? and params

 

The tank has been running for 5 months. The coral doesn't looked bleaced, it's not whiter than the rest of it. No ammonia, nitrates or nitrites. Calcium is 440 and don't know the magnesium or alkalinity. All other fish and corals are good.

 

It may be phosphates. If you don't have a tester for it (I would suggest the apI reef master test kit) your lfs should be able to test. All of my corals perked up a lot when I got my phosphates below .5 ppm

 

Ok, thanks. I will check it tonight.

 

And check nitrates. Corals can be pretty sensitive to phosphate levels above .5 ppm and nitrate levels above 5ppm. I use phosguard in my filter to keep phosphates down and purigen to control pretty much everything else

 

Just checked my phosphates. There in between 0 and .25.

 

Ok cool. That's in range. How are your nitrates? How about lighting and flow in the area of the affected frogspawn?

 

Nitrates are 0 and I have 2 powerheads so flow is good. I have 2 led strip lights which should be more than enough.

 

Hmmm... I'm out of ideas. Do you target feed?

 

I got the tank from craigslist a week ago so I don't know if he was spot feeding them. I just started to and it seems like it might be doing a bit better. would they look like that from lack of food?

 

If they don't have enough light, not enough food could do that. Do you know your calcium iodine and magnesium levels? Those might be important

 

And if ph is too low, they won't be able to take in nutrients as well

 

my calcium it at 440, ph is 8.2-8.4. not sure of the magnesium or iodine.

 

If you use a reef salt then the others should be fine