Hammer coral -- moderate flow clarification

[fsn77]

We bought a wall hammer, and while I understand it likes "moderate" flow, I'm wondering if my idea of moderate is similar to that of everyone else. It's place mid-level in our tank, about 10" below the surface in our 90g, under pc lighting. It's near a rotating powerhead that puts out about 300 - 350 gph. The closest part of the wall hammer is just over 4" from the tip of the powerhead and gets hit by the sweeping motion about every 8 seconds for about 2 seconds. Here's a short movie clip that shows the flow -- it's low res, but you can see the hammer move when the current hits it. Is this too much flow?

 

[tomnmaddie]

Fsn77

I have a branching hammer with six heads in what would be moderate to heavy flow and they get buffeted from random directions and are doing fine, I also keep sps in my tank so flow is high in most parts of the tank.

 

[papagimp]

I have a branching Hammer with two heads and he seems to HATE anything over a slight flow. I've had to relocate him 4 times before he finally puffed up. Got him right behind a frogspawn that is in direct flow path and the f/s tends to break up any major turbulance before the hammer gets it. Trial and Error

 

[reefgeek84]

they tend to like light to moderate INDIRECT flow, so flow that is bouncing of the glass at them.

 

[fsn77]

Trial and error... I reconfigured the powerheads in our tank today after a horrible accident with a fish and listening to a talk at the local club about how flow influences coral growth. I took out the largerst one (that was hitting the wall hammer -- I had to delete the movie in case anyone is wondering (server space)), and added in 3 smaller ones (total of 4 now instead of two). After doing so, the wall hammer has opened up more now than it ever has! Apparently, the powerhead originally in that area was too much for it. It was open before with tentacles waving, but since I switched the PH in that area to a smaller one, it has opened up twice as big. It's opened up more now than it was in the tank at the LFS. I thought it was looking good as it was, but here I was holding it back from looking great.

 

[sarduci]

Congrats with the hammer.

My froggies are happy in a 90g with a SEIO 1800 and general indirect flow. Some times they get a bit unhappy, so I move them around a bit an inch or two and they've big and puffy an hour or two later.