GHOSTLY
2500 Club Member
So I heard that wall hammers are harder to keep for some reason. I see so many at my Lfs that have been there for 3 plus months. Would it be worth trying it out? Also why are they harder
Hammer and wall hammers
- Thread starter GHOSTLY
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Zer0
Active Member
Wall hammers are generally more difficult because if something infects them or they start melting for whatever reason, you’re gonna need to pull the whole thing and perform surgery if you want to attempt to save anything by way of fragmenting. With branching hammers, you just snap off the infected heads and that’s pretty much it. I’m sure there are other reasons, but that’s what I’ve mainly come across. I think it also has to do with where or how they are harvested, and what kind of damage is done to the skeleton.
Sharkbait19
10K Club member
Don’t try it. I wasted $150 on a beautiful wall hammer and after a month it got BJD. They do not respond well to most aquariums. Stick with branching hammers. They are more often aquacultured and are generally healthier specimens. Walls are beautiful, especially the giant 2’ ones my lfs sells. But in the end, I’d spend only $40-60 on a branching frag and save the headache.
Below are two photos, showing a month of my hammer having gone from flourishing to suddenly ill. They’re extremely temperamental.
The main reason wall hammers are so hard to keep is the fact that they’re more often wild caught, and go through more stress in fragging and selling. Additionally, once one head perishes, the whole thing goes down.
Below are two photos, showing a month of my hammer having gone from flourishing to suddenly ill. They’re extremely temperamental.
The main reason wall hammers are so hard to keep is the fact that they’re more often wild caught, and go through more stress in fragging and selling. Additionally, once one head perishes, the whole thing goes down.
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My experience with wall hammers is you need very stable parameters. Keep your salinity and KH stable and your wall hammers should stay happy. Recently, l lost some very nice wall hammers due to salinity dropping and KH swings. Other branching hammers and frogs I have are are fine. And, more indirect flow and gradual changes, there just more finicky. I’d be interested to hear others feedback as well.
Sharkbait19
10K Club member
Brown jelly disease, bacterial infection that spreads rapidly, turns the flesh to jelly. 95% of the time it’s a death sentence for corals.
I attached a pic of my hammer that got it in my above post.
I attached a pic of my hammer that got it in my above post.
Sharkbait19
10K Club member
If you want it, go ahead. However, buy it at your own risk. If you're interested in the coral, there's no reason not to give it a try, but I would just hate to see you spend so much money on something that has a high mortality rate in aquariums...
tsouth
Valuable Member
On the contrary, I’ve had 3 wall hammers from Unique corals for over a year. Take it for what you will but I’ve had a salinity swing down to 1.016 by accident and they survived while my torch polyps bailed.
Sharkbait19
10K Club member
I suppose it’s dependent on the individual. If you want to try it, you should definitely dip it to limit the risk of Brown Jelly Disease. Again, I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad idea, but getting one may be a risk.
saltyfins
Well-Known Member
Sharkbait19
10K Club member
I still have the skeleton to my wall hammer so I am considering making a branching hammer chia pet...
Timfish
Crusty Old Salt
A huge probelm we have as aquarists is we can't accurately identify clone lines (genets), or genotypes and we can't accurately determine age. These variable have a direct impact on a coral's immune system and ability to deal with the myriad different microbes and changing environmental conditions. I would suggest tweo things; One, don;t spend more than you are willing to loose when it dies. And two, find out as much as possible from your source on what's the conditions and tankmates are in the system a specific colony is thriving in (assuming it's thriving :/ ).
Great info here
