SPS Frags - How do you know there alive after shipping

[Decalf]

I recently ordered some frags of ebay and have a issue to ask the community. The rules of the auction are you must report dead on arrive pieces within 1 hour of UPS signed delivery. Well I haven't delt with SPS corals to much but from what I have seen it is really hard to identify a SPS that is in good condition in one hour. It took me a good 45 minutes alone to drip them and dip them and get them in the tank. Its been 4 days now and 2 of the 3 SPS coral show no sign of poly extension whatsoever so Im guessing there dead. So my questions are

1. Is this one hour rule really the usual rule from most sellers. I mean do the sellers believe you should not go to work or leave the house when you have ordered something from them. It takes me 35 minutes just to get home from work. So is this realistic or is this just a way to get you to not try to get a return on a DOA

2. Is there any good ways to see if a SPS is DOA. I mean couldn't some be withdrawn from shipping and you wouldn't know for sometime if the piece is alive or not.

I guess Im just a little dismayed I did everything right but didnt see one bit of life from the pieces in question. One piece has been fine and has great extensionoh:

Please tell me what you think.thx

 

[chort55]

Stuff like this is exactly why I don't buy coral from fleabay!

However don't completely rule them out just because of a lack of polyp extension, some pieces are more delicate (picky) and may take longer to adjust from shipping, and the tank changes...... goodluck hopefully they will bounce back. Do you have any pics of the pieces?

 

[Murfman]

Dead is typically a white skeleton and smells like low tide. If there is color on the coral, it is alive.

 

[Aquaph8]

Smell them, live SPS have a very distinct smell.

 

[kschweer]

+1 on smelling them. May sound weird but it's true.

 

[Raggamuffin]

White = dead, stinky = dead, color of any sort (most SPS brown a bit in shipping due to stress) = live. Polyp extension can take weeks of adjusting to your tank. If it is 1/2 white and it looks like your sunburnt skin peeling off that = 90% chance of dead but not dead yet, would report it as dead.

 

[Steelerfan747]

+1 on smelling it. I bought one piece of a local fish store and it looked great but smelled horrible. At the time I did not know any better and lost it within a few days.

 

[evolved]

Protip here:

Smell them, live SPS have a very distinct smell.

Related: it's also a great well to tell if an SPS is bleached or dead.

 

[reefhobo]

When it's dying you can also see brown cloudy water they came in. That's my experience.

 

[gmoney243]

U can't smell a coral in its bag and if u open the bag u negate any doa refund. This is typical policy of any online vendor. Yes you should take off work the day corals are to arrive it takes typically 12 hours to ship a coral to you. Corals and fish need to get into good clean proper temp water fairly fast when u receive them. Also why would u want to leave ur box outside for hours in thiS heat your corals will cook in short order so unless its 78° outside your causing more stress and death on fish/corals. Would u refund someone money if they let the corals bake or freeze outside? I understand your frustration its just a risk you take when ordering anywhere online.

Sent from my Vortex using Tapatalk 2