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Acclimation Instructions


mcaswell

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I have some mushroom and zoa frags arriving tomorrow, and I was reading up on your acclimation instructions, which specifically say to NOT drip acclimate, and instead just float the bags for 30 minutes.  I read the blog post that indicated the reason for this is the urgency to get the corals out of the now-dirty shipping water as soon as possible, so presumably the rationale is that drip acclimating would leave them in the dirty water for hours.

 

Being relatively inexperienced with corals, I'm certainly not in a position to disagree (and I intend to follow the given instructions), but I'm still curious as to why the acclimation procedure does not involve at least some kind of gradual introduction of new tank water (even if just adding incremental amounts of tank water to the bag during that 30 minute float period).  Does it not harm the corals to experience what may be an abrupt change in salinity, pH, etc. if just transferred directly to the tank water?

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You know - I was on the fence like you too when I ordered online and the specific instructions said to just temp acclimate and get it in tank water right away. Anyways, I followed their instructions and no losses. I thought of all that shock too, but I think in that situation it's more of "which is more stressful and harmful" to the coral.

 

The salinity shouldn't be that off? Pre ask them what their salinity is at when they ship. Most of these online companies keep their reef tanks at 1.026. I keep my home aquarium at 1.026.

 

To answer your question about adding incremental of water to the bag during that 30min period. The problem is once you open that bag, ammonia, pH, and other parameters spike through the roof, so you want to get it out of the dirty bagged water as quickly as possible. The only other thing I thought of is use Prime as a de-toxifier, but I didn't want to risk it. These big online shipping companies know their stuff so I just went with it.

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I always float and toss them in, never lost a single coral that way, be it Softies, LPS or SPS.

Corals also aren't as delicate as most other invertebrates as they don't have complex internal organs and a circulatory system that can be damaged by sudden changes in water chemistry.

 

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