Why wont my hammer grow!

so i'v had this hammer stalk for close to 5 months and have seen NO growth and i mean none. it's sitting ~10" from 4xt5 in a shelterd low flow area. parameters are good(~5-0ppm nitrate,undetectable phosphate ~420ish Ca) and i have seen good growth in most coral. i just don't get this, i even feed it mysis! how does everone else keep theirs??

thanks guys.

 

Is it branching or wall hammer. Mine is branching and is kept 14" from lights with med to high flow. I am feeding the same as you mysis, cyclopeze and phyto dusting every now and again. It has just recently branched a new head after 3 mos.

 

my hammer grows a new stalk a month, i dont do anything extra, no target feeding, just whatever the whole tank gets fed, a mix of oyster feast, rotifeast, phytoplankton, cyclopeeze, mysis cubes, fish roe, and fish

 

Some peoples tanks are just different..Just keep doing what your doing and it should grow at some point.

 

What are your parameters? Phosphate and nitrate could be issues. Also, mine prefers some flow. Also, water changes seem to be important. The biggest thing is light, mine seem to prefer "SPS" style lights. In my old tank it stagnated for quite some time when I moved if for other corals. Now under a 250MH it's coming back strong. I have a frag though in my lower tank 6" below a 75W MH that isn't doing much. Just not enough for it apparently....

 

hmmm, i'v done some research and i think i'v found something. Euphyllia seems to have trouble with the chemicals given off by softies Sacrophyton and Sinularia(fingers and toadstools) and i have mine right above an 8" wide toadstool. maybe some movement and carbon are needed. thanks for the replies.

 

If you have leathers - running carbon is a must IMHO - especially with other non-soft corals.

I would hope you will see some increased growth when you remove the toxins that the leathers are emitting into the water column.

 

I won't get into the warfare thing ;D, but carbon should always be run in a reef IMO.

 

i was running it in a sock for a while(crappy lfs stuff) but im thinking i may need ANOTHER reactor and some BRS Rox.8 stuff. yippeee......

 

I dont believe softies in your tank is the answer to the lack of the Hammer growth imo. I had the same issue, in fact you could search my past threads on this same topic. I had a branching Hammer coral that seemed to be a slow grower, while other corals seemed to grow faster.

I want to ask what are the corals you speak of that are growing faster in your tank. typically softies will grow faster than Hammer, and even some SPS such as Montipora grows faster, So be careful what your comparing your growth rate too.

With all this being said, my hammer barely grew the first year I had it. I found the main issue to be lighting. I switched from the stock bulbs of my fixture into ATI Blue, ATI Aquablue and UVL aquasun 10k. The lower kelvin higher par bulbs have helped my Hammer tremendously and it went form having 2 heads for almost a year to both heads splitting twice and now has 6 heads in 2 months time. Softies, especially zoas, and mushrooms even some leathers will still grow even in very poor lighting conditions which is why they are a bad comparison to LPS Hammer.

Generally you will notice that the reefers running halides, rarely complian of growth problems. So if your a person running t5's its imparitive you have the proper bulbs if you want good growth. All the other issues, feeding, toxins in water,cal,all play a part,but lighting plays the biggest.