Hammer polyp sizes?

[JasonVH]

Do branching hammers come in a wide range of polyp sizes? My first hammer was the only hammer(no torches) in tank for 4 yrs. Got new ones-all as single polyp/heads- starting last summer with the most recent back in December. There's a total of five now. During this time, finally started to test for alk and calcium- apparently alk may have been on the low side for most if not all those years. Big lesson learned.

The new ones have been branching and growing profusely, a particularly fast one already has 11+ heads. I had no idea corals could grow this fast. Been noticing the original still has not split/branched but instead has grown into a even bigger single polyp/head along the flesh band growing even bigger and longer than it had been during the previous years. The flesh band on this one is twice as wide and tall as the individual polyps on the other hammers.

So I'm wondering do hammer polyps come in size differences? "Small/regular polyps" vs "large/giant polyp" hammers? I don't think the original hammer is a wall as it grew vertically with no sideways growth?

Pictures attached- was not easy trying to get both the original and new hammer polyps within the same frame. One picture has added diagram to showcase the flesh band sizes- the original is vertical(red lines), the horizontal one(yellow lines) is from one of the newer hammers. Top down view: original is in lower right of picture. This is single polyp compared to others with multiple polyps- top is the one with 11+ heads, gold one on left has three, possibly some starting to split, gray one in bottom left corner has four, also some possibly splitting.

 

[VintageReefer]

Ah when you say polyp, you mean heads.

Yes different hammers from different regions will have different size heads. They mostly are all around an inch but they can vary. Also, new growth heads will be smaller at first.