Do You Need To Acclimate new corals?
While many reef hobbyists will just toss a new coral or frag into a reef tank, this is something I do not recommended.
Your coral or frag has been pulled out of an environment that is has been accustom to for many weeks, months or longer. It’s then removed from it’s familiar habitat, placed in a plastic bag until it reaches it’s final destination. Simply placing it straight into a new environment can cause extreme stress. Acclimating corals gradually allows the coral to adjust to the new water conditions. Every reef tank is different, therefore the water conditions where your coral or frag came from will most likely be different from your aquarium set up. Buying coral frags locally is a great way to make it easier on the coral by reducing travel time and shipping stress. Acclimating corals also allows them to slime up. When corals slime up, they build up a mucus barrier which you will see if you lift your Acro out of the water. This mucus is important as it plays a vital role in cleaning your coral from dirt and can protect your coral from bacterial infections.
Acclimating Corals to water parameters
Proper acclimation is critical for your new frag or coral, therefore, there are a few general procedures you need to follow:
- Turn off your aquarium lights. (if it’s only been a few hours since picking up your frag(s), this is not necessary)
- Float the bag in the aquarium for 15 minutes.
- Place your new frag into a container.
- Add aquarium water into the container every few minutes until you have doubled the amount.
- Dip or quarantine your frag or coral. (this is optional)
- Place your coral into the reef tank at the bottom and slowly move it up over a few weeks.
Acclimating procedure
- Place your frag or coral in a small container.
- Slowly add your aquarium water periodically (a small cup or turkey baster works great) for 30 minutes to an hour. This dilutes the water your coral or frag arrived in, to the water you have in your reef tank.
- After acclimating, you can add your coral to your reef tank.
Drip Acclimation Method
As the name suggests, drip acclimation is where you add a controlled amount of droplets of aquarium water per second. This method very gradually equalizes the the water parameters. Drip acclimation is generally not necessary for most corals, however, it is useful when there is a big difference in the salinity between your aquarium water and the bagged water. Care must be taken when drip acclimating over a prolonged period of time to insure the temperature does not drift away from the aquarium water temperature.
Acclimating Corals To Lighting
While water parameters such as pH, salinity, and temperature are the most important factors when acclimating corals, it is also essential to consider the lighting.
Lighting plays a critical role in coral survival. Most corals contain zooxanthellae, symbiotic algae that photosynthesize from the aquarium lighting, providing your coral with much of its nutritional requirements.
When acclimating your coral to its new lighting conditions, you should avoid dramatically changing the lighting schedule, as this can affect the rest of the tank. When placing new corals into a tank, particularly less forgiving corals like SPS corals, start off placing your coral low on a frag rack or the sand bed, then slowly move them up to the final destination over the next few weeks.
For Acropora frags, your frags may take off from day one, while other times they may turn brown for the first few months and color back up after it has gotten accustomed to its new conditions. One thing that should cause a little concern, is if your Acro starts turning white, as this is usually the start of coral bleaching from too much light or stress. These color shifts are due to varying zooxanthellae concentrations inside your Acropora’s tissues. This is why it’s important to acclimate and start your new coral low in the aquarium.
All the corals I keep in my reef tanks at ReefHog.com are grown under a combination of LED and T5 lights. So they are already accustom to either or both lighting types.
Do Acropora Corals Also Require A Coral Dip?
Choosing to dip or not dip your new coral is a personal preference. Inspecting, dipping and quarantining your corals is a great way to prevent any unwanted guests from hitchhiking their way into your reef tank. Corals and even frag plugs can be prone to carrying Acropora-eating flatworms (AEFW), red bugs, Asterina starfish, coral eating nudibranchs, aptasia, vermited snails etc. Once these critters get into your reef tank they can be extremely difficult to completely eradicate, therefore, a quick coral dip will hopefully prevent them from making their way into your reef.
When dipping your coral, always check and double check the amount of dip you are adding to your dipping container water, as improper dipping will surly lead to coral death. If your new to coral dipping, I suggest reading up on it or checking out some YouTube videos.
I take quarantining very seriously. Every coral I have in my collection has been inspected, dipped and then quarantined for a minimum of six weeks in a fishless system before being added to my reef tanks. I’ve had good results using Bayer, Coral RX or Revive for dipping.
Summary
By buying new corals locally, you already have a leg up on reducing the stress that corals shipped across the counties go through. Following proper acclimation procedures will insure that you give your new coral the best chance for success and many years of enjoyment.