Hammer Coral with a Voracious Appetite

[Alexraptor]

I had turned off all the pumps and fed my reef and was sitting trying to take some stills of of Brain coral with its feeding tentacles fully extended, when I out of the corner of my eye caught this guy making A LOT of movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRoiTcguduU

Can honestly say I've ever seen such an aggressive feeding response from any of my corals before, ever.

[Reef Bass]

Yay hungry hammers! I also enjoy feeding lps and watching them capture food. Hammers can take larger items too, like chopped mysis.

As a suggestion, while you're dispelling myths about inanimate plants (which is great), I would also dispel the plant myth. Maybe something along the lines of "many may think coral are inanimate plants, but they are actually animals capable of grabbing and eating their food", for example.

[Alexraptor]

Well I thought I was dispelling the plant myth period. I added the inanimate part to emphasize how people in general percieve plants.

[JeffyT]

you should make a video of a before an after. what it looks like before the hammerhead extends! or what it looks like after its done eating!

[CoralBeauty13]

I just posted a question on youtube, It was about feeding...what did you feed. Mine is always in a coma mode and I never see it react like this.It is growing and splitting, so I'm not sure whats up.

[Alexraptor]

Yeah I saw, and as I replied, I feed Ocean Nutrition's Lobster Eggs. I was pretty stunned myself, as this is the first time I saw it react like this, and it was sheer luck I was sticking around to take some stills of my brain coral so I could capture the whole thing on film.

Ive fed things like mysid before, and while it would eat them, it wasn't very enthusiastic about it. Personally, while euphyllias can consume larger meaty foods such as mysid, i don't believe its part of their normal diet.
Instead I think they feed mainly on smaller larval critters and small pods that drift by in the current, and that the lobster eggs are very similar to this, both in size and in nutritional value, which could be what triggers such an intense feeding response.
Of course, that is all just speculation and guesswork.

What I have noticed, is that since I started feeding with lobster eggs, polyp and tentacle extension has nearly doubled, and its become very aggressive.
Where before it co-existed just fine with some nearby rhodactis shrooms, its now attacking and stinging the crap out of them.