Branching hammer coral

[that guy]

I know this is not specifically about soft/lps corals but i figured it goes in this category. I'm looking at hammer corals to buy and i'm seeing them being sold as frag, branching, and regular/large. I'm not very familiar with teminology but what does a branching coral mean? I know this may sound like a stupid question but I'm trying to do my homework on corals before buying so I won't make novice mistakes. Thanks in advance.

 

[insanefishguy]

First off, hammer is lps and so you are in the wrong forum, but that's no biggie. Hammers can either be branching or wall hammers. It us referring to the structure of the skeleton. The branching varieties will have small heads that split and form more branches. A wall hammer will grow a long skeleton and not branch off. I've seen them make "t" or "u" shapes though. The branching varieties are much easier to frag because the branch can just be cut or snapped off without as much risk of tissue infection.

 

[benjaminspades]

How do you even begin to frag the wall hammer types? Do you just cut small sections with a band saw? I personally like the branching types they seem to look more flow-ey. But then again the wall hammer types make solid pieces that also look cool. I was wondering if there are any gold wall type hammers? I haven't been able to find one.

 

[insanefishguy]

Band saw or dremel and cutoff wheel. It's always risky cutting their flesh though. A friend has an encrusting frogspawn. For that he used a rubber band to pinch off the flesh before he cut it with a dremel. A wall variety would be near impossible to force the flesh to separate though.

 

[that guy]

thanks

thanks

That really helps me because i'm not planing on fragging. By the way does anyone know if hammer corals will do fine on live rock as well as sand?

 

[insanefishguy]

You just don't want the flesh actually in the sand

 

[Jopalmighty]

I've got a branching hammer in the sandbed right now and it seems to be thriving. 2 heads right now about to grow another one I think.