No Responses to “Button Coral..need Some Help?”

1. TheRav1n says:

   September 1, 2010 at 8:34 am

   It gets energy from light and meaty food. During the day it is mainly “feeding” off the light. At night, or conditioned feeding times, the button will reach out with tentacles in hopes of grabbing some brine shrimp or larger foods like krill or shrimp. Feed meaty foods at least once or twice a week. If you have fish in with him he should be able to grab much of his food from leftover brine or mysis shrimp from the fish, but spot feeding some foods once a week will ensure its health. Some occasional feedings of micro plankton is also appreciated.
   Open (photosynthesizing): http://www.liveaquaria.com/images/catego…
   closed/feeding (give meaty foods): http://www.tulwar.com/imagehost/NanoJun1…
   Lots of things will eat it, from seaspiders, certain crabs, certain fishes, etc. I even have a tail spot blenny (supposed to be reef safe) that I had to remove since it decided the mouth of my button coral looked yummy and he started to tear at it! So take caution on even “reef safe” animals. Avoid hermit crabs or any crab as they can easily tear its flesh by simply walking over it. Many people keep hermits in with them and are fine, so don’t panic, but if you don’t have any yet, avoid them.
   It is a single polyp coral that is solitary in nature. I’ve seen some smaller clusters of Scolymia onthe same rock, but each are separate corals. It is an LPS (large polyp stony coral) and calcium levels around 420 are ideal. There are two types of button coral often confused and very similar, being the Scolymia sp. and the Cynarina sp. The Acanthophyllia sp. are also often confused and sold under the common name of button coral. The Scolymia stay smaller and only inflate a little more than their skeleton, the next in line is the Cynarina which can expand many times its skeleton, and the Acanthophyllia is the largest expanding well out past its skeletal size.

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