Hammer Coral Advice

[rschneid]

My Australian Green Hammer coral is not growing. Its been in my tank for about 7 months. Its not dying back but its also not growing. So for you successful hammer coral growers what advice can you give me?
I do note that at night it completely retracts. I have read that it should be sending out sweepers at night, which is not something I have ever seen. Whats should I see and when should I see it? My Stunner is amazing at night with a waving mass of sweepers! So I think I know what I should be seeing.

The tank is 9 months old.
All of the following are growing nicely:
Acropora, Monticora, birds nests, acans, clam, stars, xenia, zoas, palys, stunner challice, purple gorgonian(despite incessant attack by fox face) and frogspawn
very slowly growing: blastomussa
not at all Hammer Coral

Current conditions:
PH 8 +- .2
dkH 9.5
Temp 80
Ca 475
Mg 1450
Nitrates/nitrites/Amonia = 0

It is placed towards the top of the tank and its getting a lot of light. I have 4 kessel 360s. over my 75 gallon tank. So yes I know its a lot of light, and maybe thats the problem? (but the birds nests are thriving on this light) Or maybe its to close to a duncan and a singularia? Or maybe its chemistry?

 

[Webmanny]

I would bring it down a bit. Based on the color of the tips, it does look like it is getting too much light. Having said that, they also benefit a lot from feeding. If you are not, I would recommend target feeding it once a week or so.

 

[rschneid]

Hammer Coral

Hammer Coral

I will move it down. Should I see sweepers at night?
Rich S.

 

[Webmanny]

I don't normally see sweepers from my hammers unless I target feed them. The only one I see sweepers from on a daily basis is my Torch coral.

 

[scooter31707]

I agree looks like it's getting too much light. I have good luck with hammers and torches on the sandbed with T5s. Also I will be careful with that hammer to in that location, it looks mighty close to that Monti.

 

[SaltyWalter]

Hammer corals are not very fast growers compared ,to the other corals you listed and I have noticed that under LEDs most euphyllia in general don't grow as fast as under t5 or halide, but that's another debate. I have also experienced that certain colored hammers grow faster than others, prob depends on what part if the world they were collected as there are most likely several subspecies and we just call all of then hammers (e. parancora in this case)
But yeah I would move it down a bit to be on the safe side, and just be happy its not dying and keep an eye out for baby head to sprout up off the bases of each branch. It will most likely take some time.

 

[Dkuhlmann]

What do you find to be the best food for hammers?

 

[SaltyWalter]

Good question... I never personaly had good luck with spot feeding them larger foods like mysis or brine, they never seemed to hold onto it for me. So I guess in my tank they feed in smaller stuff like cyclopeeze, rotifer, and plankton for frozen foods or reef roids, coral frenzy, or gonipower for powder dry foods. That's all I feed and my purple tip green branching ha!met gains 3-4 heads every 6 months under t5s in an sps dominant tank.

 

[scooter31707]

I have had some good luck with Marine Snow, cyclopeeze, and Reef Chili

 

[Tweaked]

Good question... I never personaly had good luck with spot feeding them larger foods like mysis or brine, they never seemed to hold onto it for me. So I guess in my tank they feed in smaller stuff like cyclopeeze, rotifer, and plankton for frozen foods or reef roids, coral frenzy, or gonipower for powder dry foods. That's all I feed and my purple tip green branching ha!met gains 3-4 heads every 6 months under t5s in an sps dominant tank.

Yep, my fish rob any larger food trying to be fed so I stick with the plankton type foods.

 

[rt67ghy]

My branching hammer loves shrimp cut up in small pieces.

 

[Webmanny]

I use Coral Frenzy and my LPS corals have tripled in size in about 6 months. I have one hammer that started with just one head 6 months ago and now has 7 heads.

They love this stuff, but so do the fish so feeding it is always a fun game.

 

[mcfa2403]

Each specimen will be different, but my hammers have a relatively steady growth rate and mine are in a tank with dimensions 48" x 20" x 17" and even when the hammers were 4" away from the water surface with 6" of air to the kessil I did not have issues with growth (the tank uses two kessil and a hydra 52). The largest limiting factor I found to growth was flow. Under direct flow, even if moderate, they would not feed properly and often would not open fully and growth slowed by about 20-40% (small sample size using 5 colonies with 4 heads each). A similar slowing in growth rate was noticed with two low flow, the heads would open nice and large and they would feed well but growth slowed in the same manner (my guess is flow has an effect on calcification).

Keeping in mind that LPS and SPS are not scientific terms, it seems reasonable to conclude that proper flow, or lack there of, will affect growth in Euphyllia similar to what it would in another calcifying species such as Montipora or Acropora with the difference in necessary flow being in the tolerance of the species.

My hammers exhibit the most growth in moderate flow either pulsing or from different directions simultaneously but with none being directly aimed at the polyp.