Scolymia: One Polyp, One Animal — Care and WYSIWYG Scolys for Sale

A scoly is a single large disc-shaped polyp — one mouth, one animal. It sits flat on the sand and inflates into a rounded cushion of concentric color that looks airbrushed under blue light. Homophyllia australis and its relatives do not multiply into colonies: what you buy is what you keep, which is why collector pieces carry the prices they do, and why the WYSIWYG photo matters more here than for any other coral we sell.

Care at a glance

Scolys want less of everything. A scoly blasted with light or flow stays deflated and eventually recedes at the edge of the skeleton — the failure is slow and it starts at the rim, so check the edge, not the middle. On the sand, in gentle water, fed a couple of times a week, they inflate to full cushion and hold color for years.

What to check before you buy a scoly

A scoly is bought from one photograph, and the photograph tells you almost everything if you read it in this order.

• The rim first. Tissue should wrap over the edge of the skeleton all the way around. A thin white ring at the outside, or ridges showing through where the flesh has gone thin, is recession, and on a scoly it starts at the rim and works inward. Check the edge, not the middle.
• The mouth. One closed slit near the center. A gaping mouth, or tissue pulling back from it, is the damage that usually does not reverse. Do not buy a scoly with a damaged mouth at any price.
• Inflation. A healthy scoly photographs as a full cushion. One photographed tight to the skeleton, with every ridge visible, was either stressed or had just been handled. Ask when the photo was taken.
• A white-light photo, or at least an honest blue one. Blue light makes every scoly look like a jewel and hides pale zones. If the listing has a white-light shot, use it. If it only has blue, look for even saturation across the whole disc; bleaching shows as washed-out patches that do not match the rest.
• The name is a grade, not a species. “Master scoly,” “bleeding apple,” “warpaint” and “rainbow scoly” are trade names for color patterns. They tell you what the piece looks like, not what animal it is or how it is kept. Pay for the pattern in the photo, not the word in the title.

When it arrives it will be deflated. That is normal for every single-polyp LPS coral and not a reason to worry. Set it on the sand, leave it alone, and check two things: the mouth is closed and the tissue still covers the rim. If either is wrong, photograph the coral in its unopened bag within four hours of the delivery scan; that is what the Live Arrival Guarantee needs.

Scoly, meat coral, open brain, Cynarina: which one is in the listing

Four big single-polyp corals get mixed up in listings, and the prices are not interchangeable. A scoly is a flat, opaque disc, usually attached to rock, and the Australian pieces are now formally Homophyllia. An Acanthophyllia, the meat coral, is a much thicker, inflated dome over a heavy skeleton, often with a translucent look to the mantle; we wrote a separate guide on what to check when buying Acanthophyllia online. A Trachyphyllia, the open brain, has a folded, brain-like mantle over a cone-shaped skeleton and lives free on the sand; see the Trachyphyllia buying and care guide. Cynarina is the smallest and most translucent, with bubbled lobes you can partly see through. If the name on a listing and the photo disagree, trust the photo, and if you cannot tell from the photo, ask for the skeleton view. We will not name a species from a picture alone either.

Scolymia in stock now

Every scoly is one-of-one. The photo is the exact animal.

One thing to know before you order: the $10 Box & Handling Fee is charged by the box, not by the coral, and UPS Next Day Air is one flat shipping charge per order. A box holds several corals for the same $10 Box & Handling Fee and the same overnight ride, Florida orders under 6 lb ship UPS Next Day Air for a flat $30, and livestock orders of $349 or more 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.

Our stony corals are either aquacultured at the shop in Key West under Florida Aquaculture Certificate #AQ0254072 or conditioned in our Key West systems before they ship, and the photo on a WYSIWYG listing is the exact animal that ships. Corals ship UPS Next Day Air every Tuesday and Wednesday. If you are ever in Key West, come see the raceways.