Hammer Coral - Can't keep them

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So I'm assuming it is safe to have torch's next to hammer and frogspawn coral?
 
I think some of the problems with the wall corals is that when fragged you are cutting flesh where on a branching you are only cutting bone. When cutting flesh it's very important to give that coral an iodine bath to promote healing and to fight off infection. If no iodine dip was provide for that coral it's doomed. I believe this is why most wall corals get a bad rep. IMO
 
Picture an islander with stacks of them on his wooden canoe setting in the sun just before he cuts them to sell/ship size with his rusty coconut knife.
 
Wow, I didn't realize this thread was so busy...apparently my email alerts are off.

There was one branching hammer I had that did great for months and then I moved and he didn't quite survive the move.

Since then I believe they have all been wall hammers, so that may be the issue. I will try a branching hammer in a few weeks to see if that is the issue. Never really thought of the m being different to care for. I guess I failed in the research department of this one.
 
One thing I noticed wasn't recommended was starting with a captive grown hammer as these are typically better acclimated to tank life. Euphyllia, while all being the same genus, will still vary drastically in temperament and for reference torch can sting and kill hammers (also acropora is a genus, go over to the sps forum and say that all species of that genus are the same difficulty). The health of one specimen should never be used as a gauge of water conditions. Euphyllia are especially sensitive to alk and those levels should be routinely checked especially with the load of calcifying corals you say that you have.

As Tweaked said wall hammers suffer from poor specimen quality, I also find that they ship worse as they are far more likely to get cut on their own skeleton. Walls also go down faster as disease in the tissue can spread more quickly than in a branch where it must travel from head to head.

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Poor picture quality, most of my hammers came from captive reared colonies and I have had 100% success. Only euphyllia I lost were torch as my clowns decided to host my Australian gold and it eventually caught brown jelly.
 
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