2014-04-28: Livestock of the Day 1

From Pacific East Aquaculture- This beautiful Gold Wall Hammer Coral is amazing!

I've been seeing more and more Gold Wall Hammer Corals surface the market recently. If you have always had good luck keeping LPS, please take this before someone else does!

For its color and size- actually not a bad deal at $199

http://www.pacificeastaquaculture.com/Metallic-Gold-Wall-Hammer-WYSIWYG-HP-A2319-Prodview.html

 Some Facts about Wall Hammer Coral-Euphyllia ancora

Hammer Corals are also known as Anchor Corals (the word ancora in its name), it is a large polyp stony coral in the Euphyllia family that includes frogspawn- http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2012/10/corals

To successfully keep this coral happy- you must have:

Temperature- 75-80F (23-27C)- I've found them to be quite tolerable to temperature swings, but they will not open up happily if it's too hot or too cold

Calcium-350-450ppm- I've found them to generally inflate more when calcium level is lower

Alkalinity-7-10

pH-8.0-8.4- Higher pH can induce faster growing as Calcium require good pH level to infuse with carbonate and magnesium. Be sure to have high oxygen level to maintain ideal pH.

Nitrate-No trace- This is a duh~

Lighting- High to Moderate-I've found them to be quire tolerant of wide variety of light condition as well. But in general the brighter the light, the better the growth. Personally I believe they do the best under high output T-5 or LED. They do OK under power compact but not much growth. With Metal Halide you need to move them lower otherwise they will bleach from overexposure. And please do not keep them in normal florescent light.

Waterflow-High to moderate- Because of the elaborate tissue, it does require stronger current to agitate the water column to ensure constant oxygen supply.

Acclimation- Honestly, unless yours or the supplier's water is severely messed up in parameters, I have never need to "drip" acclimate these things. I've always float them, make sure the water temp matches up, then simply open the bag and toss them in. I must say that take caution in mixing the seller's water into your tank as you don't know what kind of disease it comes with. So I generally take the coral out and toss the seller's water away. I also recommend a quick dip before you introduce the coral into your tank-Careful not to use too much iodine