Budding Hammer?

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mykpoz

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I have a hammer, that developed several heads, that I assumed would grow big and add to the size of the hammer.

They continue to grow, but I noticed what looked to be one of the heads on a small shell near the hammer, is it possible for them to spread like this?

I have looked around the net for instances/information but have not been lucky.

I will try to get a picture of the smaller piece and see what everyone thinks.

for now here is a picture of the actual coral, it was rescued form a tank where 2 of the heads were starting to receed, and it screamed for me to save it. :)
 

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I believe it's called budding and yep, it's possible. I'll see what I can find for you.
 
thanks :) actually found this...

Captive reproduction of most Euphyllia species is by budding of daughter colonies around the base of the parent or by separation of a colony from the living tissue edge around the septa. Sexual reproduction occurs in the wild, and has been documented in captivity, as well.

http://www.reefs.org/library/aquarium_net/0197/0197_2.html

how exciting! :)

Anyone need hammers in a few months?
 
"Budding via small groups of polyps with tiny calcified skeletons is common in captivity with E. Parancora (branching hammer)"
Quoted from Eric Borneman's book, Aquarium Corals.
 
well there is a good 15-20 on the whole thing... and I am assuming not all will make it...

One thing the article I found did not mention is how often they will do this.

will it be random? or happen pretty frequently?
 
I have no idea, sorry. Borneman doesn't go into that much detail and I couldn't find much more than you did online. :?
 
got this from bluebin.net

To date I have seen this coral reproduce asexually by three different means. The most common means is when the colony simply divides in half and splits into two.

A less common way, which occurs predominantly in Hammer Corals, is when a small bud appears in a dead portion of the skeleton, well below the living tissue. This small bud is a miniature version of the parent colony. Within six months, when conditions are right and it has grown large enough so that there is sufficient dead skeleton between it and the mother colony, this daughter can be broken off. This new colony can then be placed within the reef tank where it will grow into a complete new colony. There has been some conjecture as to whether this bud grows out of the mother colony or is actually a planular larvae that has settled out.

Support for this latter hypothesis comes from the third type of asexual reproduction that I have witnessed in Euphyllia corals. In this type of reproduction, which I first observed at Dick Perrin's Tropicorium, miniature polyps of a large colony of Frogspawn Coral were "ejected" when the coral was gently agitated. These daughters then sealed off and settled to the bottom, where they attached to the substrate. After several weeks they began to excrete a skeleton and a new colony was started. This latter mode of reproduction appeared to produce the most offspring; Dick reported that this colony produced two or three new daughters every day. Unfortunately, he also said that the survival rate was not high because the current in these tanks often moved these daughters onto other corals where they were stung and killed.
 
mykpoz my hammer buds new heads all the time so IMO it will continue to do this as long as the conditions in the tank are right. Calcium and alkalinity should be monitored so it has what it needs to make a skeleton base. You are correct that not all the new buds will make it. I have noticed this on my hammer, some the the smaller ones are choked out by the larger ones. My tank crashed about 1.5 years ago and my 21 head hammer was reduced to 9. It now has over 30, just give it room to grow and keep doing what ever your doing to make it happy.
 
I originally thought it was my UV light, there was a film of dust like substance in the UV and the UV smelled real bad like burnt plastic so I thought the UV PVC somehow broke down and released something into the tank. The tank water was cloudy like someone poured milk in it. The pump on the UV stopped and the UV was super hot.. All my corals looked like crap. I lost several corals or parts of corals and 1 fish right away and others never recovered and died months later.
I am still not 100% sure what it was, all water tests were fine. I was ready to break the tank down after doing several days of water changes and nothing was getting better. A LFS let me use there diatom filter as a last resort and within hours the tank was clearer and after 24 hours it was crystal clear. I almost packed it in after that... After a year my tank is finally back to where it was, except for the coraline algae on the back of the tank just wont grow much any more? The back was covered before the crash.
 
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