Hey Everyone,
Have you ever kept a Scolymia?
As you may have noticed, we are BIG into Scolys. We have like 60 plus Scolys of all types on hand at any given time. Since they are almost all collected instead of propagated, there is a lot of responsibility that goes with keeping them in your aquarium. Propagation of these animals is rare, although possible. Although they are not difficult to keep, they do seem to have some requirements that need to be met in order to help increase your success rate. Here are a few of our tips, based on our personal and professional experience in working with them:
1) Make sure that you obtain a specimen that has been properly collected or handled. If at all possible, try to find out where they came from, and who or what outfit collected and imported them. This is surprisingly important, as haphazardly collected Scolymia (or ANY coral, of course) often fare poorly, suffering damage or shipping insults that will often seriously endanger their lives. We obtain ours from very experienced, conscientious Aussie collectors - some of the best in the business. And the Australian government regulates the trade in these animals rigorously, to help preserve wild populations. It's not perfect, but it's a better way to trade in wild collected livestock.
2) Make sure that the vendor has had them for a while. Like any coral, they take time to adjust to the rigors of captivity. Shipping stress, light acclimation, nutrition, etc. are all factors that come into play here. When you're looking at a freshly imported Scoly, it will often show signs of stress, such as under-expansion, tissue recession, lack of feeding response...even tissue trauma. At UC, we typically do not make specimens available for sale until they have been with us for some period of time. "New" on our site typically means "we've had this coral for weeks, and we are now releasing it". We've had many for months! It may not be the most economical way to offer these corals, but it's the right way, in our opinions.
3) Acclimate the coral carefully to it's new environment. This means acclimation to water chemistry, flow, AND lighting conditions. Take days, even weeks to adapt the coral to your lighting. Acclimation to new lighting is a major source of stress to these corals, in our experience. If your dealer or vendor has had them for a while, find out what type of lighting regimen they are using. Very important!
4) In our experience, these corals typically fare better under moderate lighting...We use balanced T5 lighting, with an equal measure of blues, whites, and even actinic. If you are using LED, ramp up the intensity gradually, and even then, these corals fare surprisingly well with lower lighting intensity.
5) Feed carefully, yet sparingly. Yup, it seems like a lot of hobbyists will overfeed these corals. This can be a real problem, because simply squirting foods into the body cavity of the coral could lead to the food rotting away inside the coral, causing all sorts of problems that can snowball into a bad outcome. Feed once a week to start, with a small amount of fine, meaty foods of marine origin. Learn to observe the coral's feeding pattern. This is what we do at our facility, and it works great!
6) if the coral came on a rock or other material, make sure that you get as much of the epiphytic algae away from the coral tissue as possible. Some of the seaweeds that are attached to rocks, such as Sargassum, etc., can occasionally grow into the coral tissue, causing damage that can lead to infection.
7) These corals tend to fare better on the lower end of the temperature scale, in our experience- usually 75- 78 F.
8) For optimum results, make sure they are either on a soft substrate, or if they are on a rock, make sure that they are on a relatively smooth surface, which will not damage them as they expand from time to time.
9) If you keep fishes like gobies that dig, spew sand, or even perch on the coral, this may be a source of stress. So think this through when considering a Scolymia for your aquarium. Shrimp that "steal" food, walk around on the corals' tissues, and generally irritate the animal are something you should avoid if possible.
10) For best results, why not set up a dedicated "Scolymia only" aquarium! Not only will it enable you to provide optimum conditions that favor the "Scolys", it will provide you an opportunity to study them and observe their behaviors and needs more carefully. You can share YOUR findings, helping to contribute to the body of knowledge that we have on these beautiful corals. And, as my girlfriend loves to say- another aquarium will help take care of your "MTS" (Multiple Tank Syndrome)!
I encourage you to share your experiences on this coral, both here on this thread, and elsewhere! Together, we can help advance the state of the art in their care, which will lead to greater propagation in captivity, and perhaps lead to a day when we will no longer collect them from the wild.
In case you need a little more convincing about he beauty of these corals, here are a few random specimens from our inventory:
Thanks, and Happy Reefing!
Scott Fellman
Unique Corals
Have you ever kept a Scolymia?
As you may have noticed, we are BIG into Scolys. We have like 60 plus Scolys of all types on hand at any given time. Since they are almost all collected instead of propagated, there is a lot of responsibility that goes with keeping them in your aquarium. Propagation of these animals is rare, although possible. Although they are not difficult to keep, they do seem to have some requirements that need to be met in order to help increase your success rate. Here are a few of our tips, based on our personal and professional experience in working with them:
1) Make sure that you obtain a specimen that has been properly collected or handled. If at all possible, try to find out where they came from, and who or what outfit collected and imported them. This is surprisingly important, as haphazardly collected Scolymia (or ANY coral, of course) often fare poorly, suffering damage or shipping insults that will often seriously endanger their lives. We obtain ours from very experienced, conscientious Aussie collectors - some of the best in the business. And the Australian government regulates the trade in these animals rigorously, to help preserve wild populations. It's not perfect, but it's a better way to trade in wild collected livestock.
2) Make sure that the vendor has had them for a while. Like any coral, they take time to adjust to the rigors of captivity. Shipping stress, light acclimation, nutrition, etc. are all factors that come into play here. When you're looking at a freshly imported Scoly, it will often show signs of stress, such as under-expansion, tissue recession, lack of feeding response...even tissue trauma. At UC, we typically do not make specimens available for sale until they have been with us for some period of time. "New" on our site typically means "we've had this coral for weeks, and we are now releasing it". We've had many for months! It may not be the most economical way to offer these corals, but it's the right way, in our opinions.
3) Acclimate the coral carefully to it's new environment. This means acclimation to water chemistry, flow, AND lighting conditions. Take days, even weeks to adapt the coral to your lighting. Acclimation to new lighting is a major source of stress to these corals, in our experience. If your dealer or vendor has had them for a while, find out what type of lighting regimen they are using. Very important!
4) In our experience, these corals typically fare better under moderate lighting...We use balanced T5 lighting, with an equal measure of blues, whites, and even actinic. If you are using LED, ramp up the intensity gradually, and even then, these corals fare surprisingly well with lower lighting intensity.
5) Feed carefully, yet sparingly. Yup, it seems like a lot of hobbyists will overfeed these corals. This can be a real problem, because simply squirting foods into the body cavity of the coral could lead to the food rotting away inside the coral, causing all sorts of problems that can snowball into a bad outcome. Feed once a week to start, with a small amount of fine, meaty foods of marine origin. Learn to observe the coral's feeding pattern. This is what we do at our facility, and it works great!
6) if the coral came on a rock or other material, make sure that you get as much of the epiphytic algae away from the coral tissue as possible. Some of the seaweeds that are attached to rocks, such as Sargassum, etc., can occasionally grow into the coral tissue, causing damage that can lead to infection.
7) These corals tend to fare better on the lower end of the temperature scale, in our experience- usually 75- 78 F.
8) For optimum results, make sure they are either on a soft substrate, or if they are on a rock, make sure that they are on a relatively smooth surface, which will not damage them as they expand from time to time.
9) If you keep fishes like gobies that dig, spew sand, or even perch on the coral, this may be a source of stress. So think this through when considering a Scolymia for your aquarium. Shrimp that "steal" food, walk around on the corals' tissues, and generally irritate the animal are something you should avoid if possible.
10) For best results, why not set up a dedicated "Scolymia only" aquarium! Not only will it enable you to provide optimum conditions that favor the "Scolys", it will provide you an opportunity to study them and observe their behaviors and needs more carefully. You can share YOUR findings, helping to contribute to the body of knowledge that we have on these beautiful corals. And, as my girlfriend loves to say- another aquarium will help take care of your "MTS" (Multiple Tank Syndrome)!
I encourage you to share your experiences on this coral, both here on this thread, and elsewhere! Together, we can help advance the state of the art in their care, which will lead to greater propagation in captivity, and perhaps lead to a day when we will no longer collect them from the wild.
In case you need a little more convincing about he beauty of these corals, here are a few random specimens from our inventory:
Thanks, and Happy Reefing!
Scott Fellman
Unique Corals
