Hammer/Frogspawn/Torch

Tank has been up for 4.5 months now and the xenia and ricordea have both been doing well for awhile. Been wanted an lps and think I may be ready to take the plunge.
How difficult are these guys to keep alive and thriving? Is there much of a difference between hammers frogspawns and torches in terms of care, difficulty/ hardiness, overall full grown size or how fast they grow?
LFS that takes care of customers tanks fragged a ton of some sort of branching hammer or anchor coral that grew massive in their tank and now they have many frags for sale of all different sizes.

 

I tried to find a pic I saw the other day of a HUGE frog in the ocean, but can't. IMOPE, my frog is definitely the testiest one of the bunch. My torch and hammer don't seem to get bothered by anything. They all seem super hardy and easy to maintain, and require moderate light at best, my frog seems to like lower light and flow. I love mine, just start with one to learn how your tank likes them, and then add the other 2 as you get comfortable

 

I have a frogspawn I got from Cosmo (^) a few months ago. It has split at least once now (twice I think) since I got it. Easy to care for - I keep it in low-medium flow, moderate light, but don't fee it.

You can feed it once a week or so for better color and increased growth (as with most LPS) if you'd like. Try Coral Frenzy or Marin Fauna LPS pellets.

 

Now I'm ticked off, GRRRRRR, my frogspawn hasn't split since then. Damn you Sean! lol, glad its doing GREAT for you, wish it like my tank that much

It was 3 head when i sent it

 

Hmm cosmo you actually live close to me in SE Ohio, Pittsburgh here. If you have more stuff available in the future I may be interested. Hard to always find what you are looking for and the one store I really like is pricey for the hammers they range from 80-100 a piece, sizes range from (rough estimate) 3-6inch diameter.
As for feeding I dose my tank with phytofeast would this benefit the lps? Where I place it is also a spot where nls pellets fall would the coral eat and benift from nls therma with garlic?

 

Also how much CA and Mag would a hammer use? Are lps like sps where you need to dose or would a small weekly WC more than likely replenish all nutrients needed.

Not sure if it matters but my nitrates range from 5-15ppm depending where I am in my WC schedule. Would this be to high for lps?

 

I don't dose currently. If the tank was small and/or had a LOT of corals then I might consider dosing. Otherwise weekly WC will be just fine. Some nitrates in the water column is OK, but try to keep it around 5-10ppm. They're a bit more lenient in water parameters than SPS.

 

I try to keep it 5-10 but have noticed them slip up to 15 or even 20 if I go 2 weeks without a WC. No fuge or sump. I had a protein skimmer but took it off really didnt like t he loo kof it on the tank and the bubbles and nosie it created, my wife really hated the thing and the xenia was ticked off from it lol. How high can nitrates get before it becomes detrimental to the lps?

 

5-10 is good for a reef, but try to keep them below 20ppm at most. You should be doing weekly water changes of about 10%. Do you have an RODI filter? How big is your tank? What other filtration do you have?

 

If you click on my sig it is my build thread.

46gallon tank with 40 lbs caribbsea live sand and about 45 lbs pukani and tonga rock (dry weight unknown wet weight). Also have a fluval C4 HOB filter with some spogne that I clean consistantly and about 200-250ml of half seagel and half seachem carbon along with some liverock rubble. thats it for filtration very simple been thinking of adding chemipure elite or purigen but am unsure.

Use tap water at the moment have since setup without many algae issues. I had phosphates tested at a lfs and they read 0 or close to it ( accuracy who knows??) my nitrates since the end of the cycle were 5-10 and now with livestock range from 5-15 depending on my WC cycle. I was doing 10gal every 10days which I think was to large to infrequent, I added the protein skimmer for 2 weeks and pulled some junk but without doign a WC at 2 weeks nitrates were still 20ish so the skimmer came off and another 10gal WC. Plan on doing 5gal WC weekly. I am not sure if the nitrates are because of the tapwater or because the system is so new at only 4 mon ths removed from the cycle

Livestock still pretty light with 2 Occie clowns and a small blue hippo tang along with the CUC. Have a small xenia colony and 2 ricordia yumas along with some hitchhiker sponge.

Feed phytofeast every couple days and some NLS thera once a day. Also throw in a small sheet of nori once or twice a week that gets compeltely consumed within 24 hours between the tang and the snails.

Unsure of where I am going I want to add more livestock but am afraid the nitrates will slowly start to climb little by little ( going sump next set up for sure!) so plan on doing mostly corals for now. Softies, lps, and zoas