What is the secret to keeping button and regular scolys alive?

[AydenLincoln]

I got this beautiful button scoly that looked great for a few days and then started to bleach and recede. All my other corals are doing great. I’m thinking my lighting was too high even though it was in the sand. Once it started to recede everyone in the tank started to pick at it and eat it. I’ve heard they are hard to keep as I learned later on. My nutrients do run high but it was my understanding that scolys are an easier species of lps to keep.

 

[CO2TLEY]

Not an expert nor do i have a scoly but will in the future. It most likely is your lighting. I’ve heard you can put scolys in well shaded areas and they’ll do fine. You just have to feed them once or twice a week but I’m sure you know that already

 

[AydenLincoln]

Not an expert nor do i have a scoly but will in the future. It most likely is your lighting. I’ve heard you can put scolys in well shaded areas and they’ll do fine. You just have to feed them once or twice a week but I’m sure you know that already

I’ll try this next time as opposed to in the middle of the tank under no shade as this one was.

 

[DED65]

Turn the lights down, use acclimating mode if your lights have it, increase power a few percent a week. If you can find out what par it was under before you buy it, it will take some of the guesswork out.

 

[Aidan_823]

Scolys really like low light, low flow areas. You can put him in a shaded part under a cave that still gets a little bit of light. If you can find a spot where there is not much flow, he will do great. Just enough flow to keep detritus off of him, but not too much to where the flesh is blowing constantly. Scolys really are an easy coral to keep, but 1) its difficult to find a perfect spot
2) they can be aggressive and sting other corals that are close to it
3) they are pretty expensive…
Once they are in a nice spot, it’ll do great for you. If it starts to bleach more, get a bottle of zooxanthellae, dose that into your tank, (it won’t hurt anything, it’ll make your corals color up more. It also helps bleached corals)

Good luck!!