Coral Placement and Adaptation Observation

[uhgster1]

My 65 gallon has matured awesomely and an experimental placement for my hammer coral became permanent. The interesting observation is based on the amount of light this coral is receiving vs the growth and color.

If you notice the hammer is in an optimal position and happy. Directly above it I placed a broken frag of red monti. I didn’t know what to expect from the monti but I certainly wasn’t expecting it to shelve as you can see. I left everything in place eventually got rid of the Pandoras on the over flow.
The monti continued to grow and shaded the hammer. But instead of dying or receding, the hammer started to race for light against the monti. You can see the results.

The hammer is ultra healthy and growing. I think that the difference is in the amount of nutrients available allowing it to supplement the lack of light it receives. You can see that the backside is just as puffy and healthy despite the lack of direct light. I also have a toxic green hammer in the same conditions that is thriving.

So I think the take away is feed your coral if you suspect that they aren’t receiving enough light and you can’t move them. Let me see some opinions!!

 

[Ron Reefman]

I've seen anemones move when light became limited. And I've seen corals (like plants) grow toward the light.

 

[uhgster1]

I've seen anemones move when light became limited. And I've seen corals (like plants) grow toward the light.

I think that what the surprise for me was that most of the hammer is shaded yet thriving. The portion under the monti cap continues to grow, showing no signs of receding or lack of polyp extension. I’m 99.999% sure that if I wasn’t target feeding it would’ve died months ago. Conversely, the orange frogspawn is at the upper level of the aquarium next to my acros! That’s 250-300 par (measured not guessed), basically going against everything I THOUGHT I’d learned over my last 7 years of reef keeping.