Order Arrived Late - Got Cold - Do I Need To Worry?

ruegaroo · Dec 2, 2020

I ordered some softies on a Black Friday sale and just got them delivered an hour ago. It's been in the 50's all day here so the corals were sitting in a cold truck. Took the temp of the water upon arrival and it was sitting at 64.4. I keep my tank at about 79. Should I worry? The seller said this is out of his control. He put heat packs in the box but they were out by the time I opened it.

I got:

Ruby xenia - looks like it will be fine. I'd be surprised if it wasn't.

Yellow tonga toadstool - looks unhappy

Pulsing sinularia - looks unhappy

Hairy sinularia - looks unhappy

Also got a free mushroom but it is spitting it's guts out.

PS. should I go after UPS for a late delivery? The tracking info said delivery would be by 9pm so I guess they were within the delivery window. Who's in the wrong here?

Pistondog · Dec 2, 2020

give them some time in your tank after acclimation.
If they're not dead you have no damages.

ruegaroo · Dec 2, 2020

Pistondog said:
give them some time in your tank after acclimation.

These should all be pretty resilient corals so I'm hoping for the best.

old salt reefer · Dec 2, 2020

What service that UPS offers did sender send them by--Regular ground(that's the be there by (9:00 PM service), overnight ground(close by to you) or overnight air? Those last 2 you get your stuff by 10:30 AM in most cases.

ruegaroo · Dec 2, 2020

tnw50cal said:
What service that UPS offers did sender send them by--Regular ground(that's the be there by (9:00 PM service), overnight ground(close by to you) or overnight air? Those last 2 you get your stuff by 10:30 AM in most cases.

This was shipped Next Day Air which usually is by 10:30am but for whatever reason it got knocked to the 9pm window. I guess they are super busy with black friday orders. I'm sure that didn't help.

old salt reefer · Dec 2, 2020

That sucks, I've got corals coming tomorrow the same way.

Mastiffsrule · Dec 2, 2020

Hi,

All should be ok since they are hardy. The key is to take you time, watch temp, salinity, ph and alk. Bring them all up to match slowly over a period of time and thing should be fine. It is when people rush things turn bad.
Take a test sample of your delivery water and tank water and slowly acclimate until the coral water is up to your tank specs and all should be good.

Them send us pics

ruegaroo · Dec 2, 2020

Mastiffsrule said:
Hi,

All should be ok since they are hardy. The key is to take you time, watch temp, salinity, ph and alk. Bring them all up to match slowly over a period of time and thing should be fine. It is when people rush things turn bad.
Take a test sample of your delivery water and tank water and slowly acclimate until the coral water is up to your tank specs and all should be good.

Them send us pics

I’ve definitely been learning to pump the brakes a little more. Reefing seems to be a life best lived in the slow lane.

najer · Dec 3, 2020

How have they settled?

MixedFruitBasket · Dec 3, 2020

I've had them survive temps as low as 50 for short periods of time. Probably the only reasons some of the corals I've gotten that have been ice cold survived.

When I've had corals go by fedex and they have "guaranteed time arrival" and the corals not get here by that time, Fedex has told me their "guaranteed time" is not guaranteed during Covid and that basically you'll just get it whenever.

ruegaroo · Dec 3, 2020

najer said:
How have they settled?

Everything but the toadstool seems like it is doing better. I have 3 other toadstools though and have had them go through rough periods only to open up later on so I'm not too worried about it. Hopefully everything continues to do better.

old salt reefer · Dec 3, 2020

tnw50cal said:
That sucks, I've got corals coming tomorrow the same way.

After listening to your story, I picked mine up at the hub at 09:30 this morning.

Goonofthelagoon · Dec 4, 2020

I had an order arrive a whole 10 hours late and i ordered fish and inverts as well as corals. everything was literally frozen, nothing was moving. I thought everything was dead. But then I let it temp acclimate to the tank and everything came out of hybernation

ruegaroo · Dec 11, 2020

Just following up on this for anybody that might be interested. My free mushroom melted and my yellow toadstool melted. Everything else survived and is doing very well. Pretty bummed about the yellow toadstool as I have been wanting one for a little while but I will get another one some other time.

Lesson learned: don't order corals on Black Friday and expect the shipping companies to not be overwhelmed. If you do order corals on Black Friday make sure the shipping is cheap! That $50 shipping price doesn't guarantee anything!

Scorpius · Dec 11, 2020

UPS has also taken away their overnight guarantee. Ordering corals around the holidays is a terrible idea and this year is doubly worse due to covid and the explosion of online orders. Better to wait till spring or when the weather is warmer.

I wish vendors would sell discounted gift cards so I can still get sale prices but order AFTER the holidays and winter.

dennis romano · Dec 11, 2020

Fed Ex and UPS are now shipping all of the Covid vaccines. It is going to get worse having things shipped.

old salt reefer · Dec 11, 2020

I just shipped a rifle from Cleveland Ohio to Lakeland Florida by UPS. It took them 45 hours to get it to the guys door.
I got some frags from Boom corals over night, FedEx had it on my porch at 1:30 PM, 3 hour later than normal.
I bought some rocks for my Saltwater aquarium that shipped by USPS. They left the Post office in North Carolina on December 1st per the tracking number. I have no idea where they are and I don't think the US postal service does either.