Liverock27, I'm sorry to hear about your issues with the new arrivals, and I agree 100% with JGoslee on their hardiness. This is the gospel truth, zoas and palys, though hardy, are extremely vulnerable when ship/in transit. With the exception of prolonged dipping or parameters that are extremely high or low, they won't experience as much stress from any other factor other than reefer error. So why are they stressed during shipping Mucho? Here's why, they are handled, packed, dropped off at the shipper, handled again, on a conveyor, on a truck, on a plane, pressurized cargo hole, the pressure in the page will even cause the bags to expand, unloaded, handled tossed and loaded again, on a conveyor, on a truck, bounced and carried to your door, unbagged after 24 to 48 hours in pure darkness, oxygen deprivations makes the trip even worse, they are then dipped, drip acclimated or even placed in a QT tank, then into your system with parameters similar or sometimes even drastically different that what they were accustomed to, and now they are in your system which may have every single reading that is much different then their home the day before.
It is at this time when their immune system, for the lack of a better word, is very low and most vulnerable, they can and will develop a fungus or BI in just one day, I’ve seen and experienced this many times. I have received frags/colonies from friends overnight and the zoas and palys were near mush in a single days journey. It can happen just that quickly. Sorry, I went overboard.
If they haven't opened by now, I would go ahead and turn on your main lights. Regarding picture #1, this frag doesn’t look good if I’m seeing it as it really is. It appears to be a paly, note the brown color of the large polyp on the right that has maintained its pigment. To the left, I see 5 or 6 polyp which has early signs of polyp degradation as the polyps are beginning to turn opaque in color. This is a typical stressed related reaction from shipping. ( Pre bleaching ), It is documented on page 379 or EB’s coral book, ( stress and/or physical stress can lead to bleaching) If this polyp doesn’t open soon, it with begin to pinch, detach, develop a heavy mucus, turn yellowish, brownish and the sniff test will confirm mortality. You will know it from the smell alone. Current, but not overpowering, is a must. I have seen polyps remain retracted for up to 2 weeks and then open up with no issues at all other than a slightly lighter color which always returns. However a shipped coral doesn’t always bounce back. I could be completely wrong as the picture doesn’t really paint a clear enough picture. I hope I am and it springs open for you.
I started running actinics only on the first day of new arrivals over for 8 years now; it has worked very well for me and many others who are now trying it. I also never feed the day before arrivals or on the day of. So what's the logic in doing that? A frag that has endured the amount of stress that I listed above while being shipped, the very last thing I want to do is bombarded them with Dual 250 watt DE HQI bulbs. These corals are photosynthetic creatures who are very highly dependant on their sometime very dense population of zooxanthellae; they are sustainable with light as their main source of nutrition. This light is a trigger which causes them to expand like a flower as the sun rises. On the day of arrival, all we really want is for the corals to open and see what we have. This can be achieved with actinic only and there is simply no need to rush or encourage expansion after a day or two of traumatic handling. Sure corals will open if you turn on your Halides and run them all day, but doing so is far more stressful then not doing it. The parallel I draw is being in a pitch black room for 24 to 48 hours, knocked around and having the climate changed periodically and then someone opens an outside door and kicks you out into the midday sun without a cloud in the sky. I know it sounds far fetched, but I can say this for a fact, I have never once lost a single healthy colony or frag when I did an actinic only light acclimation for the first 24 to 48 hours.
The reason I don't feed or allow any particulate food in the water column is for similar reasons. Food alone in the water column triggers a feeding response. If I have a stressed coral which can be very expensive to purchase, the very last thing I want is to stimulate a prey/capture feeding response and stimulation of their Gastrovascular tract. Why? My goal has always been to allow the polyp to first acclimate to the new system via all parameters, fish and inverts. The rush to place new arrivals on the reef, to get them to fully expand and thrive should always be the exception and not really the rule. Rushing them to expand to extremely intense lighting has been met with delayed expansion. I’M NOT SAYING THAT YOUR POLYPS WON’T EXPAND WITHOUT ACTINIC ACCLIMATION. I’m simply saying that the rush to do so can be costly. But how do you know this to be true Mucho? I think it was 1999 or 2000 when I proved the above to be true. There was a guy on the west coast who was the hottest thing around back then. His shipping methods were not the best and I shared something with him that cut his mortality in half. Once the shipping improved, I along with 2 other reefers placed an order, all for the exact same corals. I ask that he prep everything exactly the same. All three were shipped together in one box to have the same stressful shipping experience. Upon arrival, we all took our corals home, with one exception, all of my corals were acclimated in actinics only for a 2 day photoperiod. They placed their corals in their tanks and turned on their main light sources. Back then I ran PC’s. One guy had halides and the other had PC’s as well. Each of us had 5 corals, all of my zoas and palys were fully open on the first day with exception of a red zoa as I recall and it open the next day. The halide tank lost one coral and they other four opened on the 4th day. The other PC tank had 2 corals to open on the first day and 3 on the 5th day. Sure it could have been other factors, but we made sure our systems were as nearly dialed in the same as possible. The little observation was a long shot, but I have consistently received the same results even with an upgrade to 250 HQI’s.
What Jgoslee says is true, they may not all open on the same day. To insure that my luck continues, I always do a water change the day before I receive any new arrivals along with my weekly addition of Reef Plus. This insures that my system is freshly loaded with any and all of the necessary essentials to give my new arrivals the best chance for survival and adaptability to an entirely new biotope which may be somewhat different than their previous home.
If you order on line, don’t be afraid to ask what type of lighting the corals were kept under and for how long. Ask what are the parameters under which they were kept. How long have the corals been in his tank? I know a lot of reefers cut frag and ship on the same day or the day before and have had good success. I would strongly suggest asking a shipper to cut/frag/glue or hold for at least 3 days, I always ask for at least a week. There is someone who is a very well known sponsor on this sight who had to cover a lot of corals that died because of this. He is now a major advocate for waiting before shipping. With the high cost of corals now, it is just best I think, to error on the side of caution.
It was suppose to be a paragraph and when I finished it wasn’t, sorry Rev.
Longwinded
Good luck.
