Hammerhead Coral-Any Experience

[smokiums]

I bought a hammerhead coral last night and was wondering if anyone has experience with it, placement,etc?

Thanks.

 

[steve-s]

Pic

These tend to be a little more light demanding but are still relatively easy to care for providing water chem is up to par. With the 4x65w PC's I would suggest at least midway in the tank or higher (depending on the light it came from). They do very poorly on the substrate as any foreign matter will irritate them and cause possible necrosis. Also be sure the water flow is in the mid-range. Too much water flow will cause the flesh to recede from the skelaton...

Cheers
Steve

 

[reefobsessed]

I have 3. I keep the all about mid tank under 250 watt 10 k MH. I also dont have mine flat. Mine are more on their side sticking out of rocks in moderate to high current. It will shrink up at night and get huge during the day so dont be alarmed when that happens.. Hope that helps...

 

[smokiums]

Thanks for all the input. I just got it last night, so I don't have any pics yet, but I've been meaning to put some of the tank period. I'll work on that.

As for the placement, I have them about halfway up with moderate current.

Do you guys feed them directly or what are you doing?

Would you guys recommend MH yet? I also have a trumpet and some other things.

Thanks.

 

[reefrunner69]

Do you guys feed them directly or what are you doing?

When I had mine, it ate when the fish ate. I tried to directly feed it silversides or krill from time to time, but it never took it, it would always just let the food go. Perhaps the food was too large for it, but it seemed content to pic food out of the water column at feeding time.

Would you guys recommend MH yet? I also have a trumpet and some other things.

It really depends on what you want to keep. If you want to keep higher light corals in the bottom portion of the tank and you want to keep SPS and clams, then sure you'll need to upgrade, but it is soley dependant on what you want to keep.

 

[smokiums]

But with my current corals,

1 Toadstool
1 Trumpet
1 hammerhead
1 greenstar polyps
1 xenia
1 recordia
1 zoos

do you recommend upgrading? I was also thinking of getting a brain that saw at my friends store.

If so, what would you recommend for a 72bow? MH that is.

Thanks.

 

[dansemacabre]

I love brain corals. They just look neat to me. Anyways! What are the tank dimensions, LxWxH? That'll proably determine what wattage/how many MH you'll need. And with a 72 bow/euro-style, I'm not sure the standard measurements.

 

[smokiums]

The tanks dimensions are (48.5x18x23).

I'm just try to figure out if I need MH yet. I don't hink so, but it can hurt to ask. I'm currently using PC 4x65 watts fixture, which puts out about 3.6 watts per gallon.

Thougths and recommendations are welcomed.

 

[dansemacabre]

I would. 23" is kinda deep. It does depend on what you want to keep though. Brains must rest on the substrate, so you'll need enough light penetration to reach them. In a tank that size, if you went the MH route, I'd get 2 of them. Now I _think_ 250w bulbs would work for ya. If you wanted SPS corals, or even clams, I'd consider 400w, but I'd definitely get more input. I'm a little green to the lighting arena myself, and I'd hate to lead you astray. My tank is about 20" deep, and after the DSB, there's only about 15"-16" of water left to go through. I'll be using 3x250w MH. One MH bulbs covers about 2 square feet, so in your tank, I'd go with 2 or you'd end up with some dim areas. This is, of course, if you ever decide to upgrade, and whether or not you will need to, is whether or not you want high-light corals and/or clams. Hope this helps!