thats one HOT hammer!

[leveldrummer]

i was at the house the other day, and my hammer puffed a huge cloud of "smoke" i grabbed the camera and caught a couple shots before it disappeared. so is it pooping? or something else. ive seen it do this once before too. ive read something else about it, but i forgot, and for anyone who hasnt seen it. here it is.






and just for fun, heres a pic of my cardinal hanging out under a leather. (i didnt know cardinals hosted too?)

[theplatypus]

He could either be deficating or spawning. :shrug

[Fly Guy]

Not sure about the puff but i am pretty sure that is not a hammer coral......its a anchor coral. Very similar though.

[wharyat]

Hammer and anchor are the same thing, just thier common name(s). There is the Euphyllia ancora (skeleton forms meandering wall like structures with very large polyps), and the E. parancora (branching, little circular polyps on a "branch").

Looks like it might be spawning. Your doing something right!

[Fly Guy]

The hammer coral (euphyllia fimbriata) is very similar to the anchor (euphyllia ancora) except the Hammer coral polyps have hammer or "T" shaped tips. The Anchor corals lack the "T" and have semi-circular or sausage shaped tips.

Im no expert, i just read a lot, especially on the corals i do have. I have several hammers and just one anchor. The anchors skeleton i have is much more spiral shaped than the hammers i have as well. Im not sure if this is a general characteristic or not.

[wharyat]

Just remember these are common names. Either can be called hammer or anchor.

[Fly Guy]

Yeah its really not that big of a deal. I will call my euphyllia ANCORAS anchors and my euphyllia fimbriatas i will call hammers. If i ever get a branching anchor (euphyllia parANCORA), i will call it an anchor as well.

[leveldrummer]

fly guy, by your definition this Is a hammer, the polyp tips are t shaped, not U's like an anchor, i alwasy thought it was the same thing too, but this one doesnt branch, not sure if that has anything to do with it, wish it did though. so i could frag it easily.

[Fly Guy]

I didnt mean to start a disagreement with anybody here, and i didnt write that definition. The tips in your pictures appear to be curved, in fact it looks exactly like my anchor, even down to the morph. All of the hammers i have have zero curve in them. They might not be perfectly straight, but they do not consistently all curve in the same direction. But again, im no expert, and they ARE all but exactly the same animal.

The branching takes place in the flesh on the arms I believe, just like on branching frogspawn, so you wouldnt be cutting it there anyway.

[whatevva]

Bill, I agree that they are different. However his looks to be a hammer to me. Mine, although I was calling it a hammer, is a true anchor:

[Fly Guy]

Hmmmm. Those tips do curve a lot, a lot more than what i purchased as a anchor. Although...like i said before, this coral i have been calling a anchor has different shaped ends than any of my other hammers. Maybe mine is a hammer as well, or maybe mine and leveldrummers are both the offspring of a hammer and an anchor that had a interracial relationship...........

Originally Posted by whatevva

Bill, I agree that they are different. However his looks to be a hammer to me. Mine, although I was calling it a hammer, is a true anchor:

[leveldrummer]

dont worry fly guy, no one is arguing, just friendly discussion, what butch posted is what i always though was an anchor, and the branching, i always thought the branching hammers base (skeleton) was what branched, not the tentacles.
like this

[fchidsey]

Hey you know I calll them all Beautiful and can't wait until I can put them in my tank. Great looking corals.