Hammer coral growing hanging heads

CRath · Mar 8, 2022

Hi there,
I have the weirdest thing going on with my hammer coral. I have a gold branching hammer that is growing in a weird way. Its new heads are growing as if they were some wacky wall hammer. One of the heads is growing skeleton, but is only attached to the colony by tissue. Originally the skeleton looked to be just a super far offshoot from the colony, but I caught the entire head and attached skeleton waving in the flow. I pulled the coral out and found that the skeleton attached to the tissue was not complete and was growing in separate pieces. Luckily the head is wrapping around the main skeleton, so I was able to build up a outcropping of superglue to stabilize the head and lock the pieces of skeleton together. The other head looks normal, except for an entire side of the skeleton never forming. The head appears healthy and happy, but I can see all the way into the insides of the polyp. A third polyp is growing like the first and was growing in the same shattered fashion. I added some super glue to hold the skeleton together. Is this a common thing for a hammer that originally grew normal heads to develop a new growth pattern? I really like this hammer and know that so much inner tissue exposed will invite brown jelly like a moth to a streetlight. The to hastily shot pictures I added are of the two heads I braced. I am going to leave the colony untouched for a while now since I want the rest of the heads to recover from the regluing process. Also, my clowns gave me some nice marks to let me know that they didn't like my forearm next to their host hammer.

CRath · Mar 8, 2022

CRath said:
Hi there,
I have the weirdest thing going on with my hammer coral. I have a gold branching hammer that is growing in a weird way. Its new heads are growing as if they were some wacky wall hammer. One of the heads is growing skeleton, but is only attached to the colony by tissue. Originally the skeleton looked to be just a super far offshoot from the colony, but I caught the entire head and attached skeleton waving in the flow. I pulled the coral out and found that the skeleton attached to the tissue was not complete and was growing in separate pieces. Luckily the head is wrapping around the main skeleton, so I was able to build up a outcropping of superglue to stabilize the head and lock the pieces of skeleton together. The other head looks normal, except for an entire side of the skeleton never forming. The head appears healthy and happy, but I can see all the way into the insides of the polyp. A third polyp is growing like the first and was growing in the same shattered fashion. I added some super glue to hold the skeleton together. Is this a common thing for a hammer that originally grew normal heads to develop a new growth pattern? I really like this hammer and know that so much inner tissue exposed will invite brown jelly like a moth to a streetlight. The to hastily shot pictures I added are of the two heads I braced. I am going to leave the colony untouched for a while now since I want the rest of the heads to recover from the regluing process. Also, my clowns gave me some nice marks to let me know that they didn't like my forearm next to their host hammer.

The picture on the left is the older malformed head

vetteguy53081 · Mar 8, 2022

Euphyllia requires Stable tank conditions, and is intolerant to major swings in water quality, and is sensitive to almost any level of copper in the water. Since they are a large polyp stony coral, calcium and alkalinity are two very important water parameters that will affect the growth of your coral. This coral will start to die off if the calcium levels are too low. A calcium level of about 400 ppm is just right.
This coral species isn’t terribly picky when it comes to the proper placement in your tank. The trick would really be just to avoid the extremes. Avoid extremely bright locations or areas of very high current and avoid areas that are too dark or with currents that are too low. Fast currents risk damaging the soft, fleshy polyps (and getting an infection). Bright lights will cause bleaching. Insufficient lighting will cause the poor coral to wither away and starve to death.
Hammer corals only require a moderate amount of light for photosynthesis and can grow well in the intermediate areas of your tank. Just about any reef LED lighting should be sufficient for most tanks.
The polyps should sway in the current, but not sustain so much pressure they are constantly bent over their skeleton. Too much flow will tear the polyps (worst case) and cause the polyps do not extend in the first place (best case). So, don’t give them too much flow.

CRath · Mar 8, 2022

vetteguy53081 said:
Euphyllia requires Stable tank conditions, and is intolerant to major swings in water quality, and is sensitive to almost any level of copper in the water. Since they are a large polyp stony coral, calcium and alkalinity are two very important water parameters that will affect the growth of your coral. This coral will start to die off if the calcium levels are too low. A calcium level of about 400 ppm is just right.
This coral species isn’t terribly picky when it comes to the proper placement in your tank. The trick would really be just to avoid the extremes. Avoid extremely bright locations or areas of very high current and avoid areas that are too dark or with currents that are too low. Fast currents risk damaging the soft, fleshy polyps (and getting an infection). Bright lights will cause bleaching. Insufficient lighting will cause the poor coral to wither away and starve to death.
Hammer corals only require a moderate amount of light for photosynthesis and can grow well in the intermediate areas of your tank. Just about any reef LED lighting should be sufficient for most tanks.
The polyps should sway in the current, but not sustain so much pressure they are constantly bent over their skeleton. Too much flow will tear the polyps (worst case) and cause the polyps do not extend in the first place (best case). So, don’t give them too much flow.

See... that's what confuses me. This piece is in very indirect medium flow and medium light (AI Prime HD, 12in from surface) and I've got my water parameters nailed down. The coral is growing rapidly and gets nice and puffy. It has gone from 4 to over 8 heads since January. I just cant figure out why its deciding to not continue branching and instead grow all wacky. My other hammers right next to it are all just as happy, but aren't growing strange.
I also know this isn't polyp bailout because the polyp is still attached to the skeleton and only closed up today when the skeleton was bumped enough by one of my clowns. That's when I noticed that it was hanging only by its flesh.

vetteguy53081 · Mar 8, 2022

CRath said:
See... that's what confuses me. This piece is in very indirect medium flow and medium light (AI Prime HD, 12in from surface) and I've got my water parameters nailed down. The coral is growing rapidly and gets nice and puffy. It has gone from 4 to over 8 heads since January. I just cant figure out why its deciding to not continue branching and instead grow all wacky. My other hammers right next to it are all just as happy, but aren't growing strange.
I also know this isn't polyp bailout because the polyp is still attached to the skeleton and only closed up today when the skeleton was bumped enough by one of my clowns. That's when I noticed that it was hanging only by its flesh.

Heads should be swaying and not pushed down and water flow would be doing it