TMC offer Aquacultured Scolymia for the first time

Tropical Marine Centre is offering Scolymia australis (current name Homophyllia australis,) for the first time since the Queensland ban that was imposed in 2021. Homophyllia australis comes from the Great Barrier Reef on Eastern Australia and the UK have been starved of supply ever since. But now, TMC has sent out the following offer to British marine stores today: 

Aqua Cultured Scolly

For the first time we have some very special Aqua Cultured Scolly packs available – these are a TMC exclusive!

Due to the limited supply they are restricted 1 pack per shop.

They MUST be checked out via the WYSIWYG section on the new website – as they all come with a unique certificate. (Which will have a code that is created by the dealer)

They are pretty wicked and nice to see Scollies again! We hope to see more in the future.

Stockists

Two stores are already advertising them to their retail customers on a first come, first served basis. To me they look like fragged scolies – cut with a bandsaw – and then healed, as opposed to captive spawned, and they’re smaller than a frag plug, versus the 3-4” diameter wild collected pieces we used to get. But there are Bleeding Apples in there, and what could be the makings of some Master Scolies. Reefkeeper Moss End has some and says a copy of the CITES number comes with each one. 

What we think

Scolies have been fragged and aquacultured by farms in Australia and elsewhere for a while, but suppliers couldn’t see a way to navigate both the import and export of aquacultured CITES hard corals from Australia versus wild collected. Regardless of where these come from, TMC have found a way, and although I will continue to press for Queensland to reopen, Scolies are back on the menu in one form at least, for those who have the budget, and the time to grow them on.