anchor: wall vs. branching

gholtmeyer

New member
Is there a difference in the two kinds? I know the structure is diff. but is there a difference in the polyps appearance? hardiness? colors? If I wanted to order one, how do I make sure I get the wall variety? pics of the two kinds? Can one handle higher light better than the other?
 
branch is more hardy then wall. If branch gets sick you can just clip off the one branch and remove the problem. With wall its all one big polyp so you cant do that.
 
I guess I have a wall. The guy I bought it from called it an octopus frogspawn. It's a monster. I have it on a rock about the size of a closed fist and when it closes it is tiny. When it open though, it's the size of a volleyball. I've never seen another one besides mine so I can't compare it to tohers, but mine its dark green with light green tips. Not as pretty as otehrs, but an interesting piece. I haven't found it to be sensitive to anything. I keep it on the bottom in medium flow under t5 HO 4x54w in a 60g tank. I feed minimally and only have a couple of fish in the tank that take prepared foods, so it doesn't get much but never seems to any worse for not eating. I have no heater on the tank, it's kept warm by the lights in the day and what ever heat the pump gives it. I keep my house in the mid 70's. I constantly battle with low alk even though I do partials every week.

So, even with my poor reefing, mine is flourishing. I went to move it yesterday becasue even though I keep it 3-4" away from everything, it has made a 'mat' that is moving towards my rocks. I have also found it to be nasty. I never noticed any sweepers until I put some zoas near it. BAM! Out they came and wacked my zoas.
 
In additition to the comments about hardiness, IME branching hammers also grow MUCH quicker.
 
Is there any difference in the apperance of the polyps between the two typs? I have seen the pictures of anchors that the tips are very curled inwards. I want one of those! What should I ask for or look for in a description if they don't have a picture of it in order to get one of those?
 
my branching hammer has semi curly tips
hammer.jpg

*i know i overexposed the pic... i apologize if it hurts your eyes*
 
That's interesting. I've never seen a branching hammer with curled tips. FWIW, that doesn't really look like a branching hammer, looking at the skeleton, at least in the pic.

Hammer.jpg


Hammer2.jpg
 
So have any of you had success with keeping the walled variety longer than a year? If not, I am wondering why we can't get them to live in our tanks?
 
A branching hammer has a "stalk" were the heads come out of. The wall hammer has no "stalk" it is just a long opening that typically cures were the tentacles come out. I have had a wall hammer about the size of a volleyball for about 8 months now, is it difficult to keep? I dont thinks so but i keep my alk. calc. mag. temp. flow. lighting. in check.

All the pics. above are branching hammers.
 
I've had a wall hammer for over three years now.

My branching hammer started from two heads over six years ago. Pretty sure everyone in San Diego has a piece of it by now :lol:
 
That's interesting. I've never seen a branching hammer with curled tips. FWIW, that doesn't really look like a branching hammer, looking at the skeleton, at least in the pic.

bad bad FLASHED pic (washed out) colors are off.

here it is semi closed... so you can see the split heads.
100_5312.jpg


i can make it retract even more... and u will see flesh between each head (denoting its not a wall)...but this pic should be good enough for now.
 
yeah, I can see that that is a branching type. The tips are curled inward also. I am guessing that the tips are really green and brown?
 
>yeah, I can see that that is a branching type. The tips are curled inward also. I am guessing that the tips are really green and brown?

this is what it looks like without a FLASH
hammerbranchs.jpg
 
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