My first SPS

[SnowManSnow]

I purchased my first SPS last night, it should be arriving tomorrow. The coral is a bird's nest coral. My question is this, since I've never tried SPS... what should I expect? Is there a special acclimation I should follow? I believe I read hight light intensity and high flow? Any experianced advice is appreciated

24" deep tank, 39g
250 DE 20K MH lighting 11" from water surface


Have a GREAT CHRISTMAS!!!!

B.

 

[Tackett]

I would do the bucket drip method to acclimate him. Float the bag as you normally would to fix the temps. After floating, pour the water in the bag into a bucket. (youll have to put something under the bucket to tip it up so that the coral is covered with water.) use a peice of airline tubing with a gang valve or tie a bunch of loose knots in it to get it slowly dripping into the bucket. About 2-4 drips per second with a 5 gallon bucket. When the water volume in the bucket doubles. (you can set the bucket level at this point.) dump out half the water in the bucket and drip more untill the volume doubles again. Take the plastic bag that it came with and scoop him out (water and all of course.) submerge the entire bag and pull the coral out (I dont like to expose critters to the air, dunno if it makes a crap, but I dont do it.) While the bag is still under water, twist it off and pull it out to keep the water out of your tank. Throw it all away.

That is a complicated process, but it is the lest stressful. I can't remember where I read that proceedure, but I like it. and I have yet to loose a fish or coral to acclimation stress since ive started doing it that way.

 

[Ben1]

The two biggest things with SPS IMO are stable tempature and stable high ALK. If your ALK and temp are stable you'll be fine. Keep it in decent flow so all the polyps seem to be moving. And of course keep the CA 400+.

 

[Anonymous]

Do you know what kind of lighting it came from? You should probably put it low in the tank if you don't know, and gradually move it to the top over a few weeks.

You can do Tackett's trrick in a pint glass too. All SPS corals will be just fine if exposed to air though.

 

[Tackett]

All SPS corals will be just fine if exposed to air though.

cool, didnt know that.

 

[Unarce]

Good choice, the birdsnest is a very hardy coral. Which one did you get? The Seriatopora hystrix (pink) or guttatus (green).

One thing I always do when introducing a new frag or colony, is a quick Lugol's Dip after or during acclimation (depending on whether I got it locally or through mail-order). You just never know what a coral could be carrying from another persons system.

 

[SnowManSnow]

It is the guttatus variation. Hopefully All will do well I wonder if it would be worth my while to "bulid" an "acclimation tank" from my 10g. I can see where it would be especially useful if you could partition it off in 3 or 4 compartments with somthing that would let the water through... that way you could acclimate 3 or 4 corals at once.. I the partitions would be more important when acclimating fish. Hmm... I may have to come up with somthing haha. Hope everyone has a ..

GREAT CHRISTMAS HO HO HO!!!

B. Snow

 

[Mihai]

Well, for SPS I've been using Wade's advice:
get them out of the bag, put them on a piece of paper for 10s, then dump them in the tank. Never lost one so far... (from about 15 of them). The thinking is that SPS are used to get out of water at low tide and can take variations in everything (temp, salinity, etc).

M.

 

[Unarce]

Once, I was rearranging some coral when I got a phone call. I freakin left a colony of A. formosa sitting on top of the tank for over an hour. It was fine, but now I never take calls during tank duty :roll: .

Happy Holidays to you too, Snow!

 

[Anonymous]

I was going to suggest what you said Mihai--it's what I do if I'm moving frags from one tank to another. Just pull em out and drop them in. I think some places ship frags dry with a bit of wet newspaper. Still probably doesn't hurt to drip it though.

 

[hillbilly]

Good choice, the birdsnest is a very hardy coral. Which one did you get? The Seriatopora hystrix (pink) or guttatus (green).

One thing I always do when introducing a new frag or colony, is a quick Lugol's Dip after or during acclimation (depending on whether I got it locally or through mail-order). You just never know what a coral could be carrying from another persons system.

Yeah, my fear is to get someone's damn red bugs!

 

[danmhippo]

A quick freshwater dip will rid the flatworm problem.

 

[SnowManSnow]

Ok lots of suggestions here...FW dip? Dry? Drip? what do I do? What would be the simplelest, but also safe, way to get these guys in my tank?????

 

[Mihai]

Safest is probably drip + dip + quarantine...
Fastest... dry + drop.
M.