Do you Acclimate your SPS to your Lights?

[Bpb]

I am amending my previous reply. I have ceased using frag racks or the sandbed. I'll employ few racks again in the future if I decide to sell frags but for now every acro I get goes straight to its forever home. After getting enough frags in I've actually noticed more stress in sandbed and frag rack life and the constant moving around than just going where they go and letting them light acclimate. Even if they're bleached already from travel. I'm finding they recover faster and have better survival rates if they're allowed to get glued down and stable and can quickly start encrusting. No more staging at various areas of the tank. Plus. With my lighting, the sandbed or along the glass on a frag rack is no lower of par than my rock work is so there's really no point. It's
More stressful to change a corals chief light facing orientation than it is to just put them where they go

 

[Ashish Patel]

I think its more important to get them used to your tanks parameters first!.. I got some frags few days ago and to my surprised the LFS DKH was 10.4 Mine is 8.5...These frags where going on the lowest PAR zone I have. Maybe if the DKH was closer the coral could can acclimate to the higher PAR. Also, if your coral is coming from 100 PAR and your giving it 250 you'll definitely bleach it. If your putting the coral in a lower range PAR 100-200 then you can probably get away with no acclimating . In the past I've done this and glued SPS directly to their final spot and helplessly watch them bleach to death. Survival is the key when you get new corals not immediate gratification -Which I am so guilty off doing.

I currently have about 7 SPS frags sitting on the sandbed acclimating to the tank parameters. Aslong as they do well after 5 days I'll move them to their final spot. I don't believe in moving them multiple times before their final spot nor waiting 2-3 weeks. I plan on putting them in 150-250 PAR range..

 

[joelwilliams55]

I’m beginning to learn that light acclimation is much more important for acros when they are shipped. If I get them from a LFS, they have usually been sitting at 200+ par so switching them to my tank at 300-350 par in 20 minutes, after a dip, isn’t as dramatic as taking them from a dark box they have been in for an entire day. For local corals, I acclimate for temp and water parameters. For shipped corals, lighting should also be considered (at least in my opinion). Either way, I never leave an acro in the bottom half of my 240 for more than a week.

 

[SamMule]

Dip and stick seems to work best for me. I observe closely for a few weeks and then only move if necessary. My experience is very limited, but
I agree with Bpb. The stress from constantly moving them seems to be worse than the shock from a lighting change.
Maybe it's a bigger issue for people using only LEDs or obscene amounts of light?

 

[Bpb]

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[TheDragonsReef]

Really comes down to knowing your par. If the whole tank is 350 or less youll rarely have issues, but if you try to throw any sps straight at 500-600 youll probably bleach it if it wasnt getting that much previously