Description
WYSIWYG Ultra War Paint Scolymia (3″) – Conditioned in Key West is a fleshy large-polyp brain coral whose inflated tissue and color are best supported by stable reef conditions, modest light, and gentle indirect water movement.
Care and Placement
Fleshy large-polyp brain corals respond best to stable reef conditions. Give the coral a flat, secure position where the tissue can expand without rubbing against sharp rock or being pressed against the skeleton by direct flow. Acclimate gradually to the stated light range.
| Lighting | Low to Medium — PAR 50–150. Diffused light supports fluorescence without bleaching the tissue. |
|---|---|
| Flow | Low to Moderate — indirect and gentle. Cut flow while target feeding. |
| Placement | Sandbed or a flat spot on lower rockwork where the polyp can fully inflate. |
| Aggression | Semi-aggressive — allow 3–4 inches of clear space from neighbors. |
| Feeding | Primarily photosynthetic; offer small portions of appropriately sized meaty food after feeder tentacles extend |
| Care level | Intermediate |
| Water Parameters | Salinity 1.025–1.026 · Temperature 76–78°F · Alkalinity 8–9 dKH · Calcium 420–440 ppm · Magnesium 1300–1400 ppm |
Keeping the Tissue Healthy
Keep detritus from settling in folds and valleys, but avoid a direct powerhead stream. The coral may inflate beyond the visible skeleton, so allow room for daily expansion and nighttime feeding behavior. Handle the skeleton rather than the living tissue whenever possible.
Consistency matters more than chasing a single number. Make lighting and flow changes gradually, keep alkalinity and salinity steady, and watch tissue inflation as the clearest day-to-day placement signal.
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.
Shipping & Live Arrival Guarantee
- UPS Next Day Air, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. We hold the box if the weather at either end puts the animals at risk. Florida livestock orders under 6 lb ship UPS Next Day Air at $30. Other continental-U.S. orders use the applicable UPS Next Day Air rate. Eligible livestock orders of $349 or more ship free. A $10 Box & Handling Fee applies per box, including on free-shipping orders. We do not ship to Alaska or Hawaii.
- Live arrival guaranteed. Photograph the animal in the sealed, unopened bag and send it to us within 4 hours of the delivery scan.
- Approved claims are resolved with a replacement or store credit. We do not issue cash refunds on livestock.
- Coverage is for condition on arrival and ends at acclimation.
New arrival? Read this before you open the bag →
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Conditioned in our Key West systems · FL Aquaculture Certificate #AQ0254072 · (305) 850-9949
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