Euphyllia/general LPS feeding questions

[toygrr]

Hey y'all, since I started adding LPS and soft corals (mostly zoas) to my tank I've been feeding reef-roids about once a week. I usually turn off all flow, and gently dispense it above corals and let it do its thing. I avoid blasting them directly. My zoas, torch, frogspawn, acans, trumpets, and favites all react well to it.

Today when I fed my hammer, about an hour later I noticed a brown ball near the mouth which I'm assuming was the roids, not expelling strings of zooxanthellae. The hammer appears to also be growing/splitting into two heads. Is this photo normal?

The hammer came in the mail two weeks ago, so the color is slowly coming back.

Edit: before the ball, it seemed to be collecting the food in a mucous of sorts, which I'm assuming was gathered into that ball

 

[rayadog]

It doesn’t look abnormal. I agree I would assume that’s a clump of Reefroids.

 

[toygrr]

Okay cool, I kind of figured, just wanted to see what folks here said. Thanks!

 

[rayadog]

If you mix up reef roids with less water it comes out “lumpier” obviously; like pictured. I couldn’t say for sure but seems like the easiest assumption. Hammer looks fine too.

 

[toygrr]

If you mix up reef roids with less water it comes out “lumpier” obviously; like pictured. I couldn’t say for sure but seems like the easiest assumption. Hammer looks fine too.

I avoid making a "paste" consistency, and kind of sprinkle it over them. I guess it did a good job gathering it ha. Hoping the neon color fills back in.

 

[rayadog]

I avoid making a "paste" consistency, and kind of sprinkle it over them. I guess it did a good job gathering it ha. Hoping the neon color fills back in.

Ohhhhh. There are hammer variations out there that look like this naturally (or aqua-cultured?) so I didn’t know you were concerned about that. So it didn’t always look like that? “Toxic splatter hammer” or something is one variation.

 

[toygrr]

Ohhhhh. There are hammer variations out there that look like this naturally (or aqua-cultured?) so I didn’t know you were concerned about that. So it didn’t always look like that? “Toxic splatter hammer” or something is one variation.

Yeah this one came from reefchasers.com, everything I've gotten from them has been healthy and opened right up.

This was sold as a "highlighter splatter hammer", and the photos on their site showed the neon tips fully colored. I have heard about spipping stress and color issues, but it comes out every day, seems to eat and gets about 140-160 PAR where it's at.

 

[rayadog]

Hmm. Weird that it was completely neon and then showed it’s splatter afterwards. It could have been stressed from shipping or not, but knowing it was sold as a splatter, it absolutely still looks fine to me. As expected for a splatter. Hopefully you like it like that!

 

[toygrr]

Hmm. Weird that it was completely neon and then showed it’s splatter afterwards. It could have been stressed from shipping or not, but knowing it was sold as a splatter, it absolutely still looks fine to me. As expected for a splatter. Hopefully you like it like that!

Ooh I didn't realize that's what the splatter part was about! I feel silly.. I am happy with it, it adds a great pop of color, I'm happy to hear it looks healthy to you - that's the most important part.

Maybe I better revisit the website and double check those photos ha

Edit: it looks just like that haha, I didn't look close enough!

 

[rayadog]

Been there done that!