Hammer coral left exoskeleton

[lucasb.]

I bought a little hammer coral head about 6 months back and I got busy and neglected my tank for a while. Aiptasia kicked in and my hammer left it’s exoskeleton, I forgot about it and it disappeared……. Now today I’m doing a water change and I see it in the back corner still alive, I put it in a shell of a dead turbo snail hoping it’ll do something. Just thought it was interesting to share

 

[T-J]

It's called polyp bailout. It's when the coral abandons its skeleton (not exoskeleton) as a last-ditch effort to survive. Usually due to poor conditions, as confirmed in your initial post.
Some people have said that their hammer/frogspawn/etc have recovered after polyp bailout (and improving their tank conditions).

 

[lucasb.]

Update….. he blew off to the horizon and got brutally murdered by a bubble coral