Hammer coral incident

beehive124 · Dec 21, 2021

OK so I’ve had this hammer for about five months and it has doubled in size since I got it. Since it got so big the top part of it was getting blasted by my wave maker. It was still on its frag plug, so I thought it would be a good idea to take it off the frag plug and glue it to the rock work. That way the top part would have more room to grow and not get blasted by the wave maker. Anyhoo, in the process of removing it from the frag plug and gluing it to the rock work I grabbed it’s polyps on a few different occasions. Do you think it’ll be OK, or will it get brown jelly disease?

beehive124 · Dec 21, 2021

Dad2Wyatt · Dec 21, 2021

My hammer is super finicky. I turned my wavemaker up 10% to try and get a little more flow and it completely receded and hasn’t fully extended since I turned it back down. Not sure on the grabbing though. I’m sure someone else will chime in but keep an eye on it in the mean time

Dcloser12 · Dec 21, 2021

Tough call. Time will tell. If you damaged it and bacteria sets in the head is done for. Studies have shown the bacteria that causes BJD exists always and the corals health plays a factor in keeping it at bay. When unhappy or damaged it's really a guessing game. It may be fine or it may recede and decelope bjd. You will know in a day or 2

beehive124 · Dec 21, 2021

Dcloser12 said:
Tough call. Time will tell. If you damaged it and bacteria sets in the head is done for. Studies have shown the bacteria that causes BJD exists always and the corals health plays a factor in keeping it at bay. When unhappy or damaged it's really a guessing game. It may be fine or it may recede and decelope bjd. You will know in a day or 2

Oh jeez

aggrofish · Dec 21, 2021

It just looks closed not receded you should be fine. I literally pulled a hammer out the other day, scraped off sponges and vertimid snails, threw it in a bucket of dip, rinsed it with RO water and glued it back. If you have some laying around turn off the flow and broadcast AB+

Dcloser12 · Dec 21, 2021

I'm sorry. Truth is of every coral hammers and frogspawns are the most touchy in my experience. One is not like the other. They have personalities it seems. I have had the same 2 hammers over 4 years and then I have newer additions. Some have died not 6 inches from the others. Others don't puff up like the others. That's the best part is they add an individual aspect with each specimen you add.

Woodyman · Dec 21, 2021

Never had it happen to a hammer, but I've had a torch get roughed up doing a water change, hose slipped and sucked of a chunk of tentacles. I dipped in iodine to be safe and put it back where it belonged on the rock work. It took a few days to open up but it was starting to go back to normal after several days. About 1.5 weeks later it was if nothing happened.

vetteguy53081 · Dec 21, 2021

It should be fine. Hammers tend to stress well and for the future, theyre fine on plugs. With growth, you'll never know the plugs were there and they have no impact on growth. This coral species isn’t terribly picky when it comes to the proper placement in your tank whether on plugs or not. 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. Remember that 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 regions of your tank. Just about any reef LED lighting should be sufficient for most tanks. Reduce white light intensity and get it off the sand bed which sand can irritate it. 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.