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This is going to be the first installment of what will hopefully be a regular feature here...
As online vendors, we receive a lot of questions from customers on a regular basis. Many of these things have been addressed before, some haven't, so I kind of figured that it would make sense to post answers to the six most frequently asked questions in recent months. Hopefully, this may address some stuff you were wondering about!
So, without further delay, let's get right into it:
What water parameters do you keep in your raceways?
As I’ve discussed before, we don’t obsess over hitting specific exact numbers for all of our parameters. We do try to keep things tight, in terms of environmental fluctuations. We keep our water temperatures around 77.5F, with maybe a degree of fluctuation, thanks to our Neptune Systems Apex. This is a very important parameter- more important than you might think, particularly with our Acros, which just fare totally awfully when temperatures fluctuate or drop substantially. Our specific gravity is 1.024.
We try to keep calcium in the 400-450 ppm range. We don’t use calcium reactors at the present time- they are quite expensive for a setup of our size, and (most importantly)we don’t need to, as we have not had issues in maintaining acceptable calcium levels in our systems. Manual additions of calcium have worked well for us. We do our best to keep alkalinity in the 9-10dkh range, as this works very well for the majority of our corals. We have seen real problems when the alkalinity fluctuates, so we keep this really in check, and we recommend that you do, too!
We’ve had a lot of discussions on this forum about phosphate, nitrate, and nutrients in our systems. As we talked about, we used to be absolutely fanatical about keeping our raceways almost sterile, which was really not such a good idea. We realized that having zero nitrate and phosphate was more of an outmoded reef keeping truism, harking back to a day (in the 1990’s, I[d think) when it was a very cool thing to brag about your undetectable nitrate and phosphate! We are a bit more relaxed about these parameters; we monitor them, and they are virtually undetectable, but not “zero.â€
Quite honestly, our corals just didn't look as nice when the nitrate and phosphate were undetectable. Now, we go just a few days longer between water changes, aren’t as hardcore about siphoning every milligram of detritus, and don’t run our protein skimmers more than a couple of days per week. ORP still averages about 379. Guess what? Our corals have never looked better.
What kind of lights do you use?
We utilize several types of lighting systems on our corals. Our “SPS†corals are kept under 400 watt, 20,000 K Radium metal halide bulbs in “LumenMax†reflectors on light movers over their raceways. Our photoperiod is about 10 hours per day . The lights are mounted approximately 16†above the waterline.
Our Chalices, Acanthastrea, Zoanthids, Palythoa and Blastomussa are kept under LED lighting systems. (our primary LED lighting is provided by Kessil A350W lights, mounted statically about 16†above the waterline. We keep them skewed considerably towards blue, as the corals seem to demonstrate their best color response with this color format. We used to keep our Chalices off to the sides, but many of them have adapted to being directly under the lights. We do work with some species off the corners of the light zone, where the par is really low (like 20 or less!)..
We also use T5 fluorescent fixtures on most of our WYSIWYG specimens and LPS corals, like Scolymia, Trachyphyllia, etc., and they do very, very well. We use a combination of daylight, “Blue Plusâ€, and “UltraBlueâ€, mounted 22†above the waterline. We run 4 bulbs typically in 8 bulb fixtures. Not only is the light perfectly effective in this configuration, but it keeps operating costs down. This “old school†combination works really well for us. Color and growth are fantastic.
How do you take your photos? Do you edit the colors?
Our pictures for corals on our website are typically shot under our T5 lights. We correct for white balance and do minimal post-production (mainly to keep colors true). We are fanatical about accurate colors, as many of our customers can attest to. We hate over saturation, which, in our opinions, is all to common and very misleading. We use a Cannon 5D Mark 18-55 miniature zoom lens.
What foods do you use to feed your corals? When you say “meaty marine-based foodsâ€, what exactly do you mean?
We will feed a combination of foods to our corals. The SPS and LPS will typically receive Reef Nutrition “Oyster Feastâ€, along with other foods, like “Mysis Feast†and Cyclop-eeze. We also use “Phyto Feast†and other generic equivalents. Of course, we will use chopped up mysid for the larger corals that can handle larger particle-sized foods. We feed several times a week before our lights come on.
Do you dip and quarantine all of your corals before you sell them?
Yup, and you should dip them and quarantine them when you receive them from us- or any other vendor, for that matter. It doesn’t matter how careful we are…There are still just too many potential pests out there whenever you’re dealing with lots of incoming new corals, and hundreds of different species. We are fanatical about dipping and quarantine, yet occasionally, something can get through. You just cannot be too careful.
We use proprietary commercial coral dips, such as RPS “All Out†and “Coral Rx.†We also quarantine all new corals on arrival, and cut the mariculture bases off on anyt maricultured Acropora that we offer. One note on coral dipping: We recommend very careful dipping of “smooth-skinned†Acros, like the deepwater varieties, as well as some Chalices, as they do not always take well to the disinfectants. You should use a longer dip in a significantly diluted dip solution.
How long can corals survive in your packaging?
While we’ve had corals and fish survive almost 48 hours in a bag because of a delayed shipment, this is by no means indicative of what they should be subjected to. We use some of the best packaging in the industry, and employee staff who are really, really good at what they do. Our guarantees are some of the most generous in our category. Regardless, this doesn’t assure that we have happy endings every time. Our best guess is that corals and fishes can typically tolerate about 28-30 hours in a box before there could be significant damage ensues. Heat packs last maybe 18 hours, ice much less, so extremes in shipping temperatures do not favor long-term survival of corals in transit.
That’s why we will generally hold off altogether on shipping corals during inclement weather, especially on weekends when life-threatening delays are a virtual certainty. Quite honestly, we are always a bit wary of shipping on weekends even in excellent weather, as unforeseen delays in shipping can postpone arrival from Saturday to Monday, making live arrival of corals almost impossible. The bottom line: We want the corals’ time in boxes and on airplanes and trucks to be as minimal as possible, so we ship to keep the transit times to a minimum.
So there you have it...Answers to some of the most frequently asked questions from the most important people in our world- YOU! If there are other questions that you are curious about, feel free to ask away and we'll do our best to get to them...If I can ever figure out how, perhaps we can make this a "sticky" to keep available for your easy reference!
In the mean time, thanks for your business, support, and friendship! We certainly enjoy interacting with you on this forum each and every day!
Stay Wet!
Scott Fellman
Unique Corals
As online vendors, we receive a lot of questions from customers on a regular basis. Many of these things have been addressed before, some haven't, so I kind of figured that it would make sense to post answers to the six most frequently asked questions in recent months. Hopefully, this may address some stuff you were wondering about!
So, without further delay, let's get right into it:
What water parameters do you keep in your raceways?
As I’ve discussed before, we don’t obsess over hitting specific exact numbers for all of our parameters. We do try to keep things tight, in terms of environmental fluctuations. We keep our water temperatures around 77.5F, with maybe a degree of fluctuation, thanks to our Neptune Systems Apex. This is a very important parameter- more important than you might think, particularly with our Acros, which just fare totally awfully when temperatures fluctuate or drop substantially. Our specific gravity is 1.024.
We try to keep calcium in the 400-450 ppm range. We don’t use calcium reactors at the present time- they are quite expensive for a setup of our size, and (most importantly)we don’t need to, as we have not had issues in maintaining acceptable calcium levels in our systems. Manual additions of calcium have worked well for us. We do our best to keep alkalinity in the 9-10dkh range, as this works very well for the majority of our corals. We have seen real problems when the alkalinity fluctuates, so we keep this really in check, and we recommend that you do, too!
We’ve had a lot of discussions on this forum about phosphate, nitrate, and nutrients in our systems. As we talked about, we used to be absolutely fanatical about keeping our raceways almost sterile, which was really not such a good idea. We realized that having zero nitrate and phosphate was more of an outmoded reef keeping truism, harking back to a day (in the 1990’s, I[d think) when it was a very cool thing to brag about your undetectable nitrate and phosphate! We are a bit more relaxed about these parameters; we monitor them, and they are virtually undetectable, but not “zero.â€
Quite honestly, our corals just didn't look as nice when the nitrate and phosphate were undetectable. Now, we go just a few days longer between water changes, aren’t as hardcore about siphoning every milligram of detritus, and don’t run our protein skimmers more than a couple of days per week. ORP still averages about 379. Guess what? Our corals have never looked better.
What kind of lights do you use?
We utilize several types of lighting systems on our corals. Our “SPS†corals are kept under 400 watt, 20,000 K Radium metal halide bulbs in “LumenMax†reflectors on light movers over their raceways. Our photoperiod is about 10 hours per day . The lights are mounted approximately 16†above the waterline.
Our Chalices, Acanthastrea, Zoanthids, Palythoa and Blastomussa are kept under LED lighting systems. (our primary LED lighting is provided by Kessil A350W lights, mounted statically about 16†above the waterline. We keep them skewed considerably towards blue, as the corals seem to demonstrate their best color response with this color format. We used to keep our Chalices off to the sides, but many of them have adapted to being directly under the lights. We do work with some species off the corners of the light zone, where the par is really low (like 20 or less!)..
We also use T5 fluorescent fixtures on most of our WYSIWYG specimens and LPS corals, like Scolymia, Trachyphyllia, etc., and they do very, very well. We use a combination of daylight, “Blue Plusâ€, and “UltraBlueâ€, mounted 22†above the waterline. We run 4 bulbs typically in 8 bulb fixtures. Not only is the light perfectly effective in this configuration, but it keeps operating costs down. This “old school†combination works really well for us. Color and growth are fantastic.
How do you take your photos? Do you edit the colors?
Our pictures for corals on our website are typically shot under our T5 lights. We correct for white balance and do minimal post-production (mainly to keep colors true). We are fanatical about accurate colors, as many of our customers can attest to. We hate over saturation, which, in our opinions, is all to common and very misleading. We use a Cannon 5D Mark 18-55 miniature zoom lens.
What foods do you use to feed your corals? When you say “meaty marine-based foodsâ€, what exactly do you mean?
We will feed a combination of foods to our corals. The SPS and LPS will typically receive Reef Nutrition “Oyster Feastâ€, along with other foods, like “Mysis Feast†and Cyclop-eeze. We also use “Phyto Feast†and other generic equivalents. Of course, we will use chopped up mysid for the larger corals that can handle larger particle-sized foods. We feed several times a week before our lights come on.
Do you dip and quarantine all of your corals before you sell them?
Yup, and you should dip them and quarantine them when you receive them from us- or any other vendor, for that matter. It doesn’t matter how careful we are…There are still just too many potential pests out there whenever you’re dealing with lots of incoming new corals, and hundreds of different species. We are fanatical about dipping and quarantine, yet occasionally, something can get through. You just cannot be too careful.
We use proprietary commercial coral dips, such as RPS “All Out†and “Coral Rx.†We also quarantine all new corals on arrival, and cut the mariculture bases off on anyt maricultured Acropora that we offer. One note on coral dipping: We recommend very careful dipping of “smooth-skinned†Acros, like the deepwater varieties, as well as some Chalices, as they do not always take well to the disinfectants. You should use a longer dip in a significantly diluted dip solution.
How long can corals survive in your packaging?
While we’ve had corals and fish survive almost 48 hours in a bag because of a delayed shipment, this is by no means indicative of what they should be subjected to. We use some of the best packaging in the industry, and employee staff who are really, really good at what they do. Our guarantees are some of the most generous in our category. Regardless, this doesn’t assure that we have happy endings every time. Our best guess is that corals and fishes can typically tolerate about 28-30 hours in a box before there could be significant damage ensues. Heat packs last maybe 18 hours, ice much less, so extremes in shipping temperatures do not favor long-term survival of corals in transit.
That’s why we will generally hold off altogether on shipping corals during inclement weather, especially on weekends when life-threatening delays are a virtual certainty. Quite honestly, we are always a bit wary of shipping on weekends even in excellent weather, as unforeseen delays in shipping can postpone arrival from Saturday to Monday, making live arrival of corals almost impossible. The bottom line: We want the corals’ time in boxes and on airplanes and trucks to be as minimal as possible, so we ship to keep the transit times to a minimum.
So there you have it...Answers to some of the most frequently asked questions from the most important people in our world- YOU! If there are other questions that you are curious about, feel free to ask away and we'll do our best to get to them...If I can ever figure out how, perhaps we can make this a "sticky" to keep available for your easy reference!
In the mean time, thanks for your business, support, and friendship! We certainly enjoy interacting with you on this forum each and every day!
Stay Wet!
Scott Fellman
Unique Corals
