hammer growing back? (big images)

[ottoman]

I had this really nice branching hammer (actually it was the first coral i got) with three branches on it. it did really well and then a head died. My LFS guy said "eh it happends sometimes" i did a iodine dip and broke the head off in the hopes that the others wouldn't die as well. A few months went by and then another head was starting to decay away. i iodine diped i got really strict on dosing and eventually it died and the third head died about a week later.

 

"eh" i said "this happends in reefing everything else i have is doing ok so i shouldn't worry about it" Well i never took the branches out of the aquarium partly because i was lazy and partly because i went out of town for a week. When i got back there was what looked like a little head growing slightly down on one branches of the dead coral.

 

So i left it in, why not it may grow back or whatever. since then alot more of the little baby things have sprouted up in the last weeks which has got me curious. Here are some pics from my tank, you can see the three dead branches and you can see the little baby hammerish things.

 

 

 

 

Thoughts? will this grow back fully? am i just keeping some horrible coral parasite in my tank? does this happen alot? anyone have this happen to them?

[Kogut]

lol. relax! The dead skeleton around the bottom probably is long gone. But that stuff growing is for sure new hammer buds. Very nice job getting it to grow back. Just keep watching it and you should have one awesome hammer coral in a little bit.

[bobioden]

It looks like it is making a comeback. The same thing happened to a part of mine when I first got it. It has since completly recovered and has grown quite a few new heads.

 

Bob