Need some emergency acclimation advice please!!!

[donnievaz]

So I drip acclimated them for a grand total of about 6 hours between last night and this morning. All are in the tank including the clam and doing well best I can tell. The corals were in pretty rough shape in the other guys tank and already look 100% better in mine. Can you guys give me some ID's on these? I know what the Pink Birdsnest and Acans are but not sure about the others.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was worried because I know alk swings can wreak havok. Why doesn't that apply in a case like this?

This is my opinion:

Acclimation generally relates to thing that an animal can adapt to and needs to adapt to in a few minutes. Alkalinity is not like that. IMO, salinity and temp are the only ones that an organism responds to almost instantly, and can be harmed rapidly by sudden changes.

Alkalinity is taken up by active transporters. Same for nitrate, phosphate, iron, etc. The levels of all of these are important, and organisms can adapt somewhat to the amount present by adjusting their uptake mechanisms. But such adaptations take more than a few minutes for most organisms (I've not seen any data on corals, but other settings, like the human GI tract, take many minutes to hours to days). Having a little too much or a little too little of these for an hour or two won't hurt organisms substantially (IMO).

I agree it is stressful for some corals to jump around in alk, especially when nutrients are low, but whether they are dumped right in or "acclimated" over an hour, I think makes no difference. They are not likely responding in real time with alk changes over a period of minutes.