Any secrets to keeping hammer coral healthy?

[sean48183]

I just purchased a beautiful flueroscent green hammer frag this weekend and was wondering anybody has any tips on keeping them healthy? My parameters are
calcium=400ppm
alk=3.5 meq/l
ph=8.3
no3=0
salinity=1.023

[joelr31]

I would increase salinity to 1.025 at the least, 1.026 optimally.

[BreefMe]

Hammers like a moderate to slightly slow flow and not super high lighting. I have a 250MH over my frogspawn which is in the same family and I have it near the bottom of the tank approx. 22 inches from the light source and the light is being slightly broken by protruding rocks..

Also, one other tip is hammer coral seems to do better mounted horizontally vs. vertically.

[BreefMe]

Also, use a phytoplankton concentrate and zooplankton concentrate so the coral can feed optimally.

[joelr31]

Zooplankton optimally, their consumption of phyto is minimal at best.

[sean48183]

So they like bigger particles of food. Do you shoot the food right over them or just let them get what blows around in the tank. How do they reproduce? Do they split at the base and form another one and do they grow fast or slow?

They like to be mounted horizontally. Mine is mounted somewhere between vertical and horizontal. I started out with epoxied vertically and my lunar pushed over a little bit before it cured. now it kind of sits sideways. I was mad at the lunar but maybe he did a good thing for once.

Also on a side note has anyone had success getting ricordea to grow? I have had mine for 3 years and it has stayed literally the same 7 polyps. Why won't these things grow?

[JENnKerry]

I have had the same colonies in my tank for the last 4 years. I started them as frags then eventually fragged them off numerous times. I noticed they looked better when I converted over from 576 watts of PC lighting to 1134 watts of MH/PC. Here is a picture of almost half of my 125 dominated by various Hammers and Frogspawn, which are all euphyllia's. (and this is just the left hand side of the tank, the right looks the same)
We dont target feed them, honestly they dont react well when we attempted to a few years back. They catch whatever particles that are floating through the water, and uneaten food.
You want the truth, Hammers, Frogspawn...EASY EASY EASY!
No special needs, just the right amount of waterflow...moderate. But they can live under high light, ours really took off under 3x250 halides and 4x96 PC.
As you can see, they dont have any complaints!
http://i20.photobucket.com/albums/b226/JennKerry/Frogspawn1.jpg

[boaconrp]

My hammer corals have to be the easiet corals I have ever kept! I agree with the previous replies, and have also found that they are happiest at the bottom of the tank with some flow, but not too much. Given that, mine have grown like crazy, and show some awesome coloration too. Good luck with yours!

[demonsp]

http://www.asira.org/caresheets

[reefworm]

Zooplankton for sure and mix in some slivers of silversides [say that 10x fast :D]. As others have said, moderate flow and very forgiving on lighting and placement

[demonsp]

Hammer like small meaty food like cyclops and brine. You only need to feed your stock and the coral will respond.Sometimes lowering or turning off your flow for an hour after feeding helps.Whats best is feeding a good mix of food , i feed flake in the morning what they can eat in 1 or 2 min and skipping a day weekly then frozen at night with brine and cyclops and marine cusine and mysis and ect.. and what they can eat in 3 or 4 min. Cyclops is a very good food for fish and coral.

Heres mine bought with 2 heads and fragged once already with over 30 heads and growing on this feeding scedule.

http://i143.photobucket.com/albums/r133/demonsperm/DSC01628.jpg

[will16]

I keep mine towards the bottom and it does get a decent amount of flow. At first I worried it was too much. Whips it around a bit but it seems to like it. Fully extends and just waves about. Hypnotic to watch. Mine will eat Mysis shrimp. I turn off the power heads and place a few pieces by the mouths with tweezers. Only problem is that they are slow eaters and i have to stand guard to fight off the cleaner/blood shrimps. Otherwise they will steal the food.

[BFG]

I never get mine to survive. I'm suspecting my clownfish is the cause of this. They do look natural going about in the hammer tentacle. I envy you guys.....

[sean48183]

Man the growth on some of you guys hammers are killer. Do the bases split into several or do all the polyps come from one base. So don't bother target feeding. I feed the fish 2-3 times daily a variety of things. Will this be ok without target feeding. I hope mine take off like alot of yours.