How do you frag Hammer Coral Buds

[ReeferWarrant]

I’ve had my hammer coral for about 2-3 months now. It has several buds at its base which are growing. I’d like to grab them because some are in the shade of the larger polyps. How should I go about removing them and fragging them?

 

[Ron Reefman]

Most hammer corals have quite hard skeletons and can be sawed using a Dremel with a good blade.

I'd be inclind to let them grow some before trying to remove them as you may weaken the stalk that the rest of the hammer sits on. Hammers grow fast enough that I never worried about losing a few small buds near the base. And if you take off an entire stalk with several mature heads, that's when I would go after any small buds in the lower part of the stalk.

 

[ReeferWarrant]

Good point! Yeah, it is growing quite well and is already splitting from the single head I bought it as. Thanks for the input! a couple of the small ones are already creating their branches.

 

[fish farmer]

I took a small multi head off my hammer when I was moving the main stalk. It was maybe as thick as spagetti. I broke it off with tweezers and glued it to a base. It did continue to grow, but not very fast , maybe reaching quarter sized when it was fully expanded. I lost it when I moved it too close to some mushrooms.

 

[ReeferWarrant]

I kind of question how they survive in the wild creating such a thin stalk and then growing to the size my main one is.... They must break off and secure themselves elsewhere somehow.

 

[GlassMunky]

I kind of question how they survive in the wild creating such a thin stalk and then growing to the size my main one is.... They must break off and secure themselves elsewhere somehow.

No they just grow out more and make new branches.
Almost all of my frags have babies growing off them.

 

[fish farmer]

I kind of question how they survive in the wild creating such a thin stalk and then growing to the size my main one is.... They must break off and secure themselves elsewhere somehow.

The picture in my profile is the one I was moving, it was maybe 10 heads with stalks about 3/4 inch wide. It started from a small frag with a single base thinner than a pencil. I was waiting for the whole thing to break off which is why I moved it. The thin base was still intact with two tiny heads, I attached the other little head to this base which grew out.