Ultra Cynarina

Description

You are buying the exact coral in the photo — a 4″ Ultra Cynarina (Cynarina lacrymalis) photographed under blue spectrum reef lighting, displaying richly textured fluorescent green folds radiating from a deep blue-violet center.

About Cynarina (Meat Coral / Button Coral)
Cynarina lacrymalis — commonly known as the Meat Coral, Doughnut Coral, or Button Coral — is a solitary large-polyp LPS coral prized for its fleshy, balloon-like inflation and huge range of color combinations. Like Scolymia, each Cynarina is a single individual polyp that cannot be fragged, making every specimen unique and irreplaceable.

This is a large, fully expanded 4″ specimen in excellent health — actively feeding and displaying vibrant color expression.

Care Guide
Lighting: Low to Moderate — PAR 50-100. Cynarina prefers shaded placement; too much light can cause bleaching or poor inflation.
Flow: Low — gentle, indirect flow only. Strong flow prevents proper inflation.
Placement: Bottom tank on sand or stable rockwork in a low-flow area.
Feeding: Feed meaty foods (mysis, Reef-Roids, LPS pellets) 2-3 times per week. Target feeding recommended for best growth and color.
Aggression: Low — minimal sweeper tentacle activity; still maintain a few inches of space from neighboring corals.
Water Parameters: Temp 76-80°F | Salinity 1.025-1.026 | dKH 8-10 | Ca 400-450 | Mg 1250-1350 | Nitrate 5-10ppm

Placement: Sandbed or lower rockwork, sheltered from direct flow.

What to expect when it arrives

A single-polyp brain arrives deflated and may look like a bare skeleton with a skin over it. Float the sealed bag 15 minutes, drip acclimate over a full hour, and place it flat on the sand bed in low light and low flow. Full inflation can take several days — these are among the slower corals to recover from shipping and the wait is normal.

Placement, and why it belongs on sand

Put it on the sand bed, not on rock. The underside is rounded and needs to seat in soft substrate; on rock the tissue rests against hard edges and abrades. Keep it where nothing can fall on it and where snails and hermits do not habitually travel, because a single-polyp coral has no spare tissue — damage anywhere is damage to the whole animal.

Light should be low, 40 to 100 PAR. These are deepwater animals and they bleach quickly under anything brighter. Flow should be gentle enough that the polyp is not rocking.

Feeding and growth

Feed directly after lights out with a small meaty food. A regularly fed scoly thickens noticeably across a few months, and that thickening is what you are buying — these corals grow in depth and color saturation rather than spreading. Do not expect a scoly to get visibly wider.

Common trouble

A tear in the tissue is almost always mechanical: a snail, a hermit, or something dropped. Deflation during the day usually means light is too strong. Both are placement problems with placement solutions.

Compatibility

Scolys have no meaningful reach and lose every exchange. Give them their own patch of sand with nothing within sweeper range.