Hammer Coral

[Sprout579]

I am going to purchase my first coral, is a hammer coral a bad first choice. I am running my tank on 130w PC. What kind of additives would you recomend for the coral and what should I feed it and how often. I have been reading a lot about corals but so many different people have so many different opinions so I am not sure...

[Sprout579]

I really like the longer tenticled corals that look like anenomes, ie. hammer coral, long tentacled coral, frogspawn, etc...

[reef_noob]

Hmm, how old is the tank?
As a general rule, the order of difficulty goes softies, lps, sps, with softies being the easiest. You might want to start with some star polyps, leathers, or shrooms, particularly if the tank has only been established a short while.

130w pc is probably the low end for a hammer. You'll need to keep it toward the top of the tank.

[reef_noob]

You might want to try to get some pumping xenia (only problem is that it can grow like crazy in the right conditions)

[Sprout579]

what about a sun polyp? How often do they need to be spot fed?

[reef_noob]

How old is the tank?

[Sprout579]

the tank is only about a month old but all my tests are good, at 0 or very very close to it.

[reef_noob]

Honestly, you should wait at least another month. The first year of a tank is a very dynamic time with a lot of phases. A reef tank really isn't considered mature until it's at least 6 months old. 8 weeks is a good amount of time to allow the nitrogen cycle to establish and to get your levels reasonably stable. Your best bet would be to buy eric borneman's book on corals (see here: http://www.thereeftank.com/books) and spend the next 4 weeks reading about the different corals and their requirements. That way, by the time the tank is more stable, you'll have a good idea of corals that will work with your setup.

[bob30329]

I killed a hammer by adding it before my tank was stable. I was doing the Calc/Alk/pH dosing dance, and hadn't added a chiller yet.

Nowadays I do a 20% water change with reef salt, dose nothing, and test only if the tank looks unhappy.

My tank is almost 6 months old, so I added a frogspawn I got cheap. Maybe I'll do another hammer in a month or so.

[wharyat]

Hammers, IME, are one of the harder euphylliads. Waiting for your tank to mature a few months would be the best route.