Hammer coral

[bandos507]

Hi!!

I understand that hammer coral have sweepers that come out at night but mine has had long tentacles for weeks now? Is this normal? Are these even the sweepers? Thank you!!

 

[cginter]

Yup totally normal. Just claiming its territory. It will sting most corals so keep it to itself or same type of coral

 

[shornik]

Yep it's normal. Here's a pic of my Hollywood stunner that was stung by my hammer. Actually I had to remove the sweeper it was just sticking into the stunner.

 

[bandos507]

Oh wow! I have a green polyp about 3 feet above it. I'm guessing it'll cause a problem in the future??

 

[shornik]

This is just my opinion but as our corals grow these things are bound to happen, and its something that is natural on the "real" reefs as corals are constantly fighting for territory. So unless you have a really expensive coral that you wouldn't want damaged I wouldn't worry too much, the corals will take care of each other like my hollywood stunner curving upwards to avoid the Hammer. Lights are out in my tank now but later I can show you similar damage that a chalice has done to a monti setosa, there is a clear dead area between the two, but the monti keeps growing away and out, while the chalice slowly is moving over. I see it all as natural. On the other hand some corals seem to be fine together, I have a monti digitata, a birds nest, and another SPS all growing pretty much on top of each other, and another birds nest and monti spongode without much issue, other than each wishing they had more space. Again, once my lights come back on I'll take some more picture (albeit not so great iPhone snaps) so you can see what I'm talking about.

 

[ou12004]

My rainbow wall hammer is far more aggressive than my branching hammers. I did move a couple corals away from it, as it was clearly not going to stop attacking a Favia and Duncan until it killed them. I do let something's fight it out, but not if one is clearly killing the other.