Loose hammer head (coral, not the shark :) ) floating around. Will it live?

[seafansar]

My hammer frag recently fell into the sand. One of the heads was pushed under the sand and after I up righted it, the tissue looked loose and a couple days later detached from the skeleton. Now the tissue from that one branch is floating around the bottom of the tank looking perfectly healthy. It's been detached for a few days now and still looks the same. Kind of looks like a bright green tiny BTA. I can see that the bottom of it has no holes in it and the tentacles look fine too. Other than it doesn't puff up as big as it did when it was attached to the skeleton, it looks fine. No sign of brown jelly. Just really weird, cause I've never had this happen before. Usually if there's damage to one brown jelly takes over and just kills off the head. Never had one jump ship like this!

Will it live? Anyone else have a hammer, torch, or frogspawn do this? Is there anyway to attach it to anything? Will it be able to grow a skeleton again?

 

[BigAl07]

Well HELLO Sara Good to see you stranger

I've had this happen to a Frogspawn before. The "Head" just disappeared after a few days. I believe what you're seeing is a form of "Polyp Bail Out" where the coral head was stressed from being in the sand. It "Bailed Out" hoping it would drift to a location and wedge into a hole to have "some" chance to carry the genetics on for another day. I guessed that mine got stuck behind the rock or something like that and just withered up to nothing. I don't think there's anything you can/should do but sit back and "observe".

Keep us posted

 

[seafansar]

Hey AL! Yeah, been away from the forums for a while, but I'm not gone! lol. Actually we have BIG plans. Anyway, I'll keep an eye on the little bugger. I wish there was some way to attach it to something. Maybe I'll try attaching it to a rock (or it's old skeleton) with floss. Probably will kill it on accident, but maybe worth a shot.

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

Hi Sara,

I have a huge branching hammer coral (much bigger than a basketball) I usually frag him by mistake cleaning, but a couple of months back he put off a small head & I found it in the sandbed, I put it in a hole/crevice in the rocks & he attached and is happy & growing.

Here a pic of my hammer coral, if you can, catch yours & wedge him in a crevice Look forward to seeing your "BIG plans"

 

[ReefApprentice]

sounds like it might reattach if put in a crevice.nano how long did that growth take?

 

[nanoreefing4fun]

3 years... or so... he was like a softball to start