acclimating coral

[scottj2]

I'm going to be purchasing some coral from a lfs in a few days.. my lfs used PC lighting, and I'm using metal halide. how can i acclimate the coral to the lighting without disrupting the rest of my tank??

[e D]

I haven't heard of people acclimating corals to different lighting situations. I think the more important thing is acclimating the coral to your different water paramaters and different water chemistry between the two tanks. I think just doing the 1-2 hour drip on your corals will be adequate. The lighting shouldn't be a problem IMO.

[oogie]

In many cases, you MOST DEFINATLEY need to light acclimate your tank.

 

Put your new coral on the bottom of the tank for few days.

Then slowly move it up to desired spot.

 

Corals can be shocked if light level changes drastically.

[Daemonfly]

If the LFS PC lighting was quite a bit dimmer than your MH (most likely) then I'd even go as far as shading the coral when you first put it in. Then you can work it out into the light on the bottom, and then move up as needed.

[wheatbre]

when i went from vho to mh i was told to put many layers of screening over the top of my tank to act as a shield then once a week pulled one layer of for like 4 weeks so like 4 or five sheets depending on how deep your tank is and what k your bulbs are. i did this and had no bleaching.

oh what kind of corals are they sps, lps, softies? i still think they all work the same.

another way that is rather anoying is lights on for an hour lights off and so on for a week then extend the length you leave them on once a week until you get to the length you want them on for.

hope this helps

brent

[archaeoreefer]

Acclimate the specimens to temp and water params. by drip method or floating+15 min water exchanges for at least 2 hours. Dim or turn off (some of) your lights if floating the bags, and especially when introducing the specimens directly into the tank. Depending on exactly what corals where talking about here, place them on the bottom and/or in a low-medium light area with shadows, etc. Leave them there for a few days to a week, then begin moving them out and/or up into their final position. Don't glue them in right away, you'll want to experiment with placement to see where they're happiest (in terms of light and water flow). There are lots of references on the web re: placement guidelines for specific corals that may be of use to to. Try Google.

[scottj2]

Thanks for the reply's everyone.. that was exactly what I was looking for.