Branching Hammer Coral Dying?

Hey guys,

Hope all is well with everyone's "mini ocean".....have a bit of an issue with one of my corals...

I have a branching hammer coral, 3 branches to be exact....they have been beautiful, purchased them over 4 months ago or so....all has been well except a couple of days ago....the middle branch shriveled up quite a bit.....then the polyps began to slowly break away from the branch, or the little cal. plates holding them in...and now all the soft tissue has washed away......my question is ...is there a chance that it might grow back in the same area, or should I attempt to remove that branch end? The other branch ends are doing fine....a little retracted but doesn't look like cause for concern.

The only thing I can think of is that a few days prior, while cleaning my tank, I accidentally must have knocked the temp gauge on the heater, which raised the water temp a couple degrees....from 78 to 80-81....I noticed about 24-36 hours after I think it actually was bumped..and slowly brought the temp back to 78...all water per. are A+...

anyone have any suggestions as to what to do, if anything for this coral?

Thanks in advance guys!

 

Don't know much about it, but I've heard they (forgot if it's frogspawn or hammer or both) will drop polyps under stress. It is also a way of reproduction. The dropped polyps will grow under the right conditions.

Right guys?

GKW

 

That is true...I had a frogspawn do the same thing. I would just leave it alone. If you see it begin elsewhere, go ahead with a lugol's iodine dip per instruction on the label. Other than that, I would just leave it.

 

Be careful, I had a torch and one of it's heads shriveled up and starting reseding and then well... died. I would do as Birdlady sugggested... Iodine dip.