Here at AquaSD, we take the health and wellbeing of our corals very seriously. We do this because we have a responsibility not only to the coral but to our customers as well. This is why they are given the best care possible from the moment we receive a shipment. All New Corals are carefully unpacked, sorted, inspected, dipped and placed into ideal water conditions, lighting and flow. We test our water daily for salinity, pH, alkalinity, calcium and magnesium.
Small Polyp Stony Corals (SPS) get a bath in Bayer. This helps us prevent introducing things like Red Bugs and Acropora Eating Flatworms (AEFW) into our systems.
Our Large Polyp Stony Corals (LPS) are dipped in a Lugol’s Iodine solution. This helps treat any of the unique LPS diseases and also kills common LPS pests.
Our soft corals, such as Zoas, Palys and Mushrooms, receive a dip in Lugol’s, Coral RX or Revive. These dips are great for keeping soft corals clean and healthy!
As the Corals settle into their new environment, they are inspected by our husbandry staff for polyp extension, color, pests and many other things. Some corals stay with us longer than others. This is why our husbandry staff is constantly monitoring all of our corals just as if they had recently arrived.
If anything out of the ordinary is noticed, the corals are separated and placed under extra observation. During this time, they could be dipped more frequently; fed more frequently or just given more or less flow or more or less light.
Our husbandry staff also takes time cleaning and replacing frag plugs, frag discs and our clam holders to insure they stay free of algae. When we frag our corals, we use a Gryphon Band Saw with a diamond coated blade. The Gryphon saw we use was modified in conjunction with one of our very own employees several years ago to make sure it was ideal for fragging corals!
All of our fragged corals are given optimum time to heal. No fresh cuts around here! Once it is time for corals to be shipped out, our corals go through a multi-step inspection process. The corals are picked, sorted, bagged and packaged by different people to insure as many eyes are put on the corals as possible. What one person may miss, another may see!
Before a box is sealed up for shipping, we do a quick check of the weather for where the order is heading. This allows us to make sure the proper precautions are taken for cold or hot weather. Cold weather means heat packs and hot weather means cold packs. If for any reason we determine it’s not safe to ship an order due to weather, we contact or customers to let them know of any possible shipping delays. It is our goal to get your order to you as fast as possible.
Once you receive your order, we recommend moving them into acclimation as quickly as possible. If there is a bit of a delay, no big deal! Corals are pretty resilient and with how they are packed, they’ll be ok in the box for a bit. If you plan to float the bags to bring the temperature back up or down. We recommend doing so in the sump. If you don’t have a sump or don’t have the space, float them in your aquarium. Just turn the lights down so the corals don’t go from a dark box to reefing level bright lights. After 15-20 minutes, we highly recommend drip acclimating them. This will help your new corals acclimate to your water conditions. Once the acclimation procedures are completed, we recommend that you dip your corals. You can follow our dipping methods mentioned above or, you can check out or acclimation procedure on our website.
