Scolymia - How to Place/Mount in Grow-Out Tank

[nickkohrn]

I have a ~2.5” (~6.35cm) Scolymia that I purchased from a local shop, where it was simply resting on an egg crate rack. All of my corals are mounted to 3” (7.6cm) frag tiles in my grow-our tank, which is bare-bottomed. The Scolymia does not slide around because the side that has my LPS corals has much lower flow then the side with SPS corals. However, I plan on purchasing a display in the future, which will also be bare-bottomed. So, the corals that will be on the bottom glass will likely be adhered to larger tiles, such as the ones that I’m currently using.

I have seen them mounted to rocks, diagonally, in display systems. I’ve also seen them laying in sand beds. Both options seem appropriate for display systems, but I’m not sure about keeping one in a grow-out system for a long time.

Would it be a poor decision to glue the skeleton of my Scolymia to a tile so that it can rest on the bottom glass without the potential for it to be blown around or moved by animalS

 

[Ocelaris]

Scolys like being elevated out of the sand, so as long as it's flesh when expanded (feeding) isn't touching anything you should be fine. I had mine glued to a rock so it was barely above the surface of the sand. I just pulled my Lobo out of a sand bed and it had lost flesh from abrasion etc... So I'm a little down on things in the sand bed right now though. Fwiw, I have wrasses who bury in the sand box, so they are always splashing sand on lps that lie on the sand. Abrasion when fully inflated is key, sand isn't bad if it doesn't get buried, but mine always seem to sink in.