Hammer corals making a comeback

[kodarix8]

I had a hammer that kicked the bucket, and being the procrastinator I am, I left the skeleton in the tank for months. I recently took a closer look and noticed what appears to be clear polyps budding from the ridges - it's eerily similar to when they bud new heads from the skeleton. Has anyone else seen a euphyllia come back from the dead, or am I just seeing things?

[florix9]

Could be legit. Had a couple frogspawn myself that I figured were goners, just skeletons, but they've since grown back complete heads – albeit a bit misshapen.

[depths]

Got any pics of this? I'm curious now. Had a similar experience with an SPS skeleton on some live rock I brought back from the Gulf of Mexico when I lived in Florida. Took a month or two in my tank for me to notice some polyps starting to grow from the skeleton, but I've never seen it happen with a LPS before.

[rusticore]

I've seen it happen with my torch before - babies would sprout from the skeleton, but unfortunately they never made it due to the main colony shading them out. Still, it's definitely possible for new growth to come from a skeleton.

[kodarix8]

Just figured I'd follow up on this for anyone interested. The buds on my skeleton are multiplying, which is pretty crazy considering there was zero visible tissue on it initially. I'd normally have tossed it by now, but I guess this just goes to show you shouldn't write off your euphyllias too quickly.

[_rivet]

Whoa, that's crazy. Coming back from the dead is right. Definitely gonna think twice before I toss out a 'dead' skeleton from now on.

[kodarix8]

I'm still amazed it came back, to be honest - the skeleton looked completely lifeless for a solid month before I saw the buds. I mean, it had zero visible tissue, just a bare skeleton. It's crazy to think about how many other euphyllias I might've tossed that could've made a comeback. Maybe I'd still have my gold torch if I'd given it a bit more time.

[depths]

Just had a similar thing happen to me, lost a hammer to a salinity spike and I'm definitely leaving the skeleton in there now. Got back from a 3-day trip and my tank was down 2 gallons, no top-off with RODI... went from 1.026 to 1.038 in my small 20g, not good. Guess I'll take a cue from you, not giving up on my skeleton just yet, haha.

[Flyntex]

This is a great thread, I've been dealing with a similar issue - one of my hammer heads has been struggling for a month, it's almost fully receded. Everything else in the tank is doing fine, but this gives me some hope, maybe I just need to be more patient.

[tetraTim]

That's really cool, glad to see it's making a comeback.