Plate corals are the reef’s free spirits: a Fungia is one enormous polyp on a round or oval skeleton that never attaches to anything. Adults live loose on the sand, inflate to travel, and genuinely relocate themselves overnight — finding your plate coral two inches from where you left it is a feature of ownership. The one-mouth disc shape recalls a scoly, but a scoly is cemented to rock for life while a plate belongs to no address.
That biology writes the care sheet. Plates go on the sandbed, full stop — wedged into rockwork they tear themselves trying to move, and a fall is the classic plate-coral injury. On open sand they are hardy, hungry and fast-growing.
Care at a glance
| Light (PAR) | 75–150 |
|---|---|
| Flow | Moderate |
| Placement | Open sandbed only — never wedged in rockwork |
| Feeding | Strongly beneficial — takes large meaty food |
| Aggression | Moderate — can sting what it wanders into |
| Difficulty | Beginner on sand, unforgiving on rock |
Give it a clear sand runway and it asks for nothing else — a plate that puffs up and drifts is behaving, not dying. Because it can wander into neighbors, leave open sand around it in every direction, and check the species directory for the low-aggression corals that share a sandbed politely.
Plate corals in stock now
3 in stock right now
One thing to know before you order: shipping and packing are charged by the box, not by the coral. A box holds several corals for the same $15 packing fee and the same overnight ride, Florida orders under 6 lb ship overnight for a flat $30, and orders over $399 ship free. If this page puts one coral on your list, it is worth seeing what else belongs in the box — start with corals under $100 or the newest WYSIWYG pieces.
Every stony coral we sell is aquacultured at the shop in Key West under Florida Aquaculture Certificate #AQ0254072, and the photo on a WYSIWYG listing is the exact animal that ships. Corals ship UPS Overnight every Tuesday and Wednesday. If you are ever in Key West, come see the raceways.