Question about hammer corals.

[JmLee]

Ok heres my question or questions. Once every 2-3 days i feed my VERY small bioload of fish ( three gobies ). Every once and awhile i will try to offer my Hammer a bit of food such as mysis shrimp. Well Almost every time, the hammer will hold on to it for maybe about 2-3 minutes, then he will just let the food go. Does anybody else experience this?. Also i havent seen any sweepers yet and ive had him for about 3 months now. During the day it is FULLY expanded (More then it was at the LFS thats for sure ). How far do they normally retract when the lights are out?. Thanks.

 

[MCsaxmaster]

Sometimes Euphyllia are picky IME. Just try a few different foods. It is bound to accept something sooner or later. Try some really small foods too. They aren't overly predatory IME though.

Good on the lack of sweepers. That's indicative of a territorial dispute, and since one goal in captivity is usually to grow corals as quickly as reasonably possible, it's a waste of effort.

Usually they retract pretty fully at night. There is normally some expansion, but not much.

cj

 

[IslandCrow]

I've yet to see the sweepers on my hammer either. I'm also having the same problems with feeding it. I have moved him higher in the tank, and he's been doing very well the past month or so, which has put me somewhat at ease, but I would like to know what types of foods people feed their hammers. I've tried mysis, brine, cyclopeeze, and even tiny bits of silversides. So far, no success.

 

[So Cal shaggy]

mine usually retract almost completely when the lights are out but open almost completely about 15-30 minutes when the lights come on in the morning. As far as feeding I do not directly feed them what I do is keep some frozen mysis shrimp or krill in the freezer and plop a some of them into a small food processor I got just for fish and puree the heck out of them into juice and refreeze the juice into mini cubes once every other day I drop one of the mini cubes into the tank and the juice feeds all the filter feeders and corals my hammer has increased in size from a two head frag 4 years ago to two separate heads of 30-40 heads each.

 

[peecook]

i splash mine with DTs a couple times a week. it has grown well over the past year. i never saw it hold onto mysis, brine, or cyclopeeze, so I stopped trying.

 

[Sk8r]

I tried target feeding for the first time with bits of raw shrimp. My frogspawn and my pearl bubble both grabbed on and held it quite enthusiastically.

 

[JmLee]

well thats good to hear!. The hammer during the day is very very open and nice and fluffy so i figure its doing good. I really am glad to see the same situation with other reefers.

 

[lizardking38]

I feed my hammer and frogspawn small bits of raw shrimp. They both eat it up quickly and do not loss any to the low current during feeding.

At night, my hammer closes up almost completely. There might be a couple of tentacles out, but for the most part it just looks like a lot of little buds. In the year I have had it, there has not been a single sweeper tentacle.