Drip Acclimating Zoas Good or Bad?

the.fish.guy · Mar 17, 2011

So i was told it was wrong to drip acclimate zoanthids. Is there any truth to this?

ladyreefer1983 · Mar 17, 2011

i never drip acclimate any zoas/palys i get....i only temp acclimate for 30 mins...then dip then to the tank

the.fish.guy · Mar 17, 2011

hmmm would drip acclimating them cause them to melt tho? in say a day or so

sf_ramsden · Mar 17, 2011

Wrong? No.

Best practice? Probably not.

Dripping is a tough thing to do, as the temperature of the water the corals sit in while dripping is more than likely going to get cold. It's also not necessary as zoas aren't typically a tough coral to acclimate to your tank, unless of course your parameters are way off.

the.fish.guy · Mar 18, 2011

hypotheically....

if i bought some corals from a guy, drip acclimated them to my tank water while the temp remained at 76degrees would the drip acclimation alone cause them to melt?
not trying to be redundant just want to make sure :0

jledon4 · Mar 18, 2011

if the temp stays the same, you should not have any problems... if your params are good there is no need to drip, for me those are hardy corals.

sf_ramsden · Mar 18, 2011

I have dripped corals before like chalices and zoos before and never had this problem in the past. Again, the main thing here is to keep temperature up. I would say the dripping process alone wouldn't make the zoos melt away. If this happened within one day of you acquiring them I would think that it would have to do something with your water parameters or the tank's parameters that they came from.

Can you tell us what your water parameters are currently at, and what type of testing kit you are using?

Good things to let us know:

Salinity (using a calibrated refractometer)
pH
Nitrate
Nitrite
Alkalinity

Any other corals in the tank, and if so what type(s) and how are they looking?

the.fish.guy · Mar 18, 2011

salinity (refractometer) = 1.024
pH (DA probe calb. last month) = 8.2
Nitrite (API, tank is 2 years old) = 0
Nitrate (API and Salifert) = 0-5
Alk (Elos and API) = 9.5dkh

thank you all for the replies btw's

ladyreefer1983 · Mar 18, 2011

maybe the zoas u got are already in poor health?melting in just 1 day is not common unless the zoas are sick or freshly fragged...did u get this from shipping?

barbianj · Mar 18, 2011

the.fish.guy said:
salinity (refractometer) = 1.024
pH (DA probe calb. last month) = 8.2
Nitrite (API, tank is 2 years old) = 0
Nitrate (API and Salifert) = 0-5
Alk (Elos and API) = 9.5dkh

thank you all for the replies btw's

It would be important to know if these results are similar to the water they came in. That will indicate how extensive of an acclimation is needed.

Mr E Wrasse · Mar 18, 2011

I only drip acclimate clams and snails. But I always acclimate for temp when the temps are off by more than 2 degrees

the.fish.guy · Mar 18, 2011

ladyreefer: yea, the frags were shipped via usps..... temp was 59 when i got them
barbianj: honestly i didn't think about checking the water they come in DOH!!!
MrEWrasse: do you follow this for sps and lps as well?

Billgax · Mar 18, 2011

I'm with Mr. E... I only acclimate corals to temperature... period. I used to import and culture corals from abroad and don't recall ever losing (or harming) livestock from just plopping them in the tanks. Caution must be exercised when taking water quality parameters of shipping water... this often isn't representative of the prior system's water quality. I have both requested and given water/light parameters to people WITH the corals... what I consider to be a basic courtesy (especially with wild collected or delicate livestock).
BTW, drip the inverts, fish and bivalves... As already mentioned.

Cuong L · Mar 18, 2011

It is never wrong to drip acclimate, but I don't think it is necessary on zoas. You can just temperature acclimate. On the other hand, if you have a known melter (i.e. armageddons, serene nova, sopranos); try to match the perimeters to the person you bought it from.

the.fish.guy · Mar 18, 2011

thank you all for the replies. love R2R

Wy Renegade · Mar 18, 2011

Did you temp. acclimate? If so how? I have seen people melt zoas in a day by temp acclimating by floating in the main tank directly under MH lights that were left on.

Reef Pets · Mar 18, 2011

I would not recommend drip acclimation any coral, including SPS. As for zoas, when we receive them as imports they are shipped completely dry.

FaviaFreak · Mar 18, 2011

I have a different outlook on dripping corals for acclimation. As long as the temp stays up I see nothing but good from dripping them. How could it be bad if the water they are coming from and water they are going into are different parameters, esp DHK/PH? at least the drip acclimation allows for a slower change in chemistry instead of a drastic one. You could have fine parameters in your system and it could still be off from where the coral you are adding is coming from, there is a wide range of acceptable parameters ie. DKH 7-11 that,s a big jump in one shot imho, PH as well could be 7 in the bag and tank might be running 8.3

I work retail and we never use to drip large shipments of Acros, just temp acclimate and we would lose colonies all the time, once we switched to a fast drip acclimation on newly arrived acros we barley lose a single one anymore. I dunno proof is in the pudding for me, I'm sold on dripping especially if you keep the temp from dropping

the.fish.guy · Mar 19, 2011

i have to agree with favia on this. all the importers i know of use a fast drip acclimation techinique. they dump all the corals in the styro shipment box, then fast drip at 10-20gph and let the water spill over in a trough for an hour or so. why do you recommend it for fish and mollusks but not corals?

Billgax · Mar 19, 2011

the.fish.guy said:
why do you recommend it for fish and mollusks but not corals?

My personal experience had been that fish and mollusks experience more shock from sudden shifts in water parameters than corals.
My experience with importers and corals retailers around the PNW had been the opposite of your experience in your area. The logic being that imported corals have been in their bags long enough to warrant the dump... plus the pouring of bag water from multiple stressed corals into a common bucket seems quite stressful to the organisms, and a drip fast enough to negate this phenom would be akin to a dump anyway. Still, would be hard to assert that drips would harm anything....

Cheers