Arvin R
Sponsor
Hey BAR!
I've been meaning to do a proper introduction of Kay's Coral Cove along with a thorough about us/about our quarantine process but haven't had time to get around to it until now. We hope you enjoy the read!
Kay’s Coral Cove started in Jan 2023 but the idea was quite some time before that as I was a hobbyist. As all hobbyists do, I loved acquiring new coral and adding them to my tank. What I hated about that is the lengthy acclimation process that everyone tells you to do with any coral no matter who’s tank or what store it came from. This is a process any hobbyists should be familiar with. Float to temp, drip acclimate, coral dip (maybe twice), rinse in tank water, then place it in the tank and find the perfect spot for it. Even after doing all that, some corals just don’t open up until a few days or weeks, a 2nd “acclimation” process that we hobbyists deal with. People state, “the coral needs time to get used to your tank and your parameters.”
I got tired of having to do all this work every time I added corals to my display tank, and also didn’t come to care for the guessing game of when will this coral open into full glory or will it just wither away a slow death without me being able to enjoy it’s beauty.
The question I had to figure out was how can we provide the highest quality corals to our future clients. How do we differentiate ourselves and bring more value than the multitude of other coral vendors out there. Fully quarantined, pest free, tank conditioned corals. (Ok, it started just as pest free corals, but here we are now and I don’t want this reading to take up too much of your time with our history.)
We were lucky to have some very loyal early adopters who worked with us and gave us amazing feedback. What evolved out of it is an intake procedure, treatment and quarantine, and healing process that offers what we believe to be the healthiest most lush corals that you can enjoy in your display tanks from the moment you get them.
No Dip or Drip Required.
We know...this statement may not be for everyone, but we do advocate to do you own method until you’ve built up enough trust in our process. Our end goal was for you to bring corals home and have a max of 15min from the time of floating to having it inside your tank. We’ve found this provides the least amount of stress to both YOU and the corals!
Our intake process
When we first receive corals, they get floated to temp. After that we will go ahead and open the bags and place the corals into a container with 50/50 bag water and our QT system tank water. We then remove the coral from it’s frag plug and/or disc and meticulously inspect the corals and manually remove any pests or sponges we see using a variety of different tools and methods. We look very closely for any flatworms and their eggs and go to manual removal as our first option using dental picks and scrapers. As a last resort we may sometimes glue over any eggs if manual removal is not an option. Aiptasia is usually treated by gluing shut and making sure there is no burrow that it can get out from on the other sides of the skeleton or cutting that part of the skeleton off where it is attached too. While this manual scanning and removal of pests is being done, we are also adding tank water a little at a time into the coral container to do the timely acclimation to our tank parameters. Once all the manual removal process is completed, we will dip the corals for 15 min in Bayer Advanced, a quick rinse, then a 2nd dip in Coral RX and a final rinse where we also glue them onto new frag plugs/discs. After that, they get placed into our QT system.
The Quarantine system and healing process
Our QT system is a 130 gallon 6ft flat with no fish and kept at an elevated temp of 81deg F. Here corals will stay for a minimum of 6 weeks to rid them of any ich tomonts and make sure any ich or velvet free swimmers die as they have no fish host to attach to which breaks their life cycle. While the corals are in our QT system they are checked on almost daily for any remaining pests or eggs that may have hatched that we didn’t catch upon intake. In this system we dose iodine and Restor to help speed up coral healing from all the shipping stress and tank transfers they may have been through. They will also stay in this system longer than the 6 week period if we find that the coral’s health is not in a well enough condition to be listed up for sale. Once the corals have completed their 6 weeks and have been found to be at full health and pest free, we will move them into our Sale system.
The Sales system
Our sale system is kept at what we’ve found to be the general hobbyist’s parameters to aide in the corals being ready to go into your systems. Temp 78F, Dkh 8, Calcium 410-550, Magnesium 1400-1500. This system does contain fish, but all fish have gone through a full treatment for ich, velvet, brook, uronema, internal parasites and deworming. While in this system, we find that our light choice does a great job at bringing out the most color that we can get out of our corals (but ironically they aren’t the best lights for displaying those colors). We do recommend Kessils or Radions for most personal display tanks and find these to display the most color pop from our corals. At this point, the coral are just simmering and continuing to get “cooked up” and are ready for you and your display tanks!
I've been meaning to do a proper introduction of Kay's Coral Cove along with a thorough about us/about our quarantine process but haven't had time to get around to it until now. We hope you enjoy the read!
Kay’s Coral Cove started in Jan 2023 but the idea was quite some time before that as I was a hobbyist. As all hobbyists do, I loved acquiring new coral and adding them to my tank. What I hated about that is the lengthy acclimation process that everyone tells you to do with any coral no matter who’s tank or what store it came from. This is a process any hobbyists should be familiar with. Float to temp, drip acclimate, coral dip (maybe twice), rinse in tank water, then place it in the tank and find the perfect spot for it. Even after doing all that, some corals just don’t open up until a few days or weeks, a 2nd “acclimation” process that we hobbyists deal with. People state, “the coral needs time to get used to your tank and your parameters.”
I got tired of having to do all this work every time I added corals to my display tank, and also didn’t come to care for the guessing game of when will this coral open into full glory or will it just wither away a slow death without me being able to enjoy it’s beauty.
The question I had to figure out was how can we provide the highest quality corals to our future clients. How do we differentiate ourselves and bring more value than the multitude of other coral vendors out there. Fully quarantined, pest free, tank conditioned corals. (Ok, it started just as pest free corals, but here we are now and I don’t want this reading to take up too much of your time with our history.)
We were lucky to have some very loyal early adopters who worked with us and gave us amazing feedback. What evolved out of it is an intake procedure, treatment and quarantine, and healing process that offers what we believe to be the healthiest most lush corals that you can enjoy in your display tanks from the moment you get them.
No Dip or Drip Required.
We know...this statement may not be for everyone, but we do advocate to do you own method until you’ve built up enough trust in our process. Our end goal was for you to bring corals home and have a max of 15min from the time of floating to having it inside your tank. We’ve found this provides the least amount of stress to both YOU and the corals!
Our intake process
When we first receive corals, they get floated to temp. After that we will go ahead and open the bags and place the corals into a container with 50/50 bag water and our QT system tank water. We then remove the coral from it’s frag plug and/or disc and meticulously inspect the corals and manually remove any pests or sponges we see using a variety of different tools and methods. We look very closely for any flatworms and their eggs and go to manual removal as our first option using dental picks and scrapers. As a last resort we may sometimes glue over any eggs if manual removal is not an option. Aiptasia is usually treated by gluing shut and making sure there is no burrow that it can get out from on the other sides of the skeleton or cutting that part of the skeleton off where it is attached too. While this manual scanning and removal of pests is being done, we are also adding tank water a little at a time into the coral container to do the timely acclimation to our tank parameters. Once all the manual removal process is completed, we will dip the corals for 15 min in Bayer Advanced, a quick rinse, then a 2nd dip in Coral RX and a final rinse where we also glue them onto new frag plugs/discs. After that, they get placed into our QT system.
The Quarantine system and healing process
Our QT system is a 130 gallon 6ft flat with no fish and kept at an elevated temp of 81deg F. Here corals will stay for a minimum of 6 weeks to rid them of any ich tomonts and make sure any ich or velvet free swimmers die as they have no fish host to attach to which breaks their life cycle. While the corals are in our QT system they are checked on almost daily for any remaining pests or eggs that may have hatched that we didn’t catch upon intake. In this system we dose iodine and Restor to help speed up coral healing from all the shipping stress and tank transfers they may have been through. They will also stay in this system longer than the 6 week period if we find that the coral’s health is not in a well enough condition to be listed up for sale. Once the corals have completed their 6 weeks and have been found to be at full health and pest free, we will move them into our Sale system.
The Sales system
Our sale system is kept at what we’ve found to be the general hobbyist’s parameters to aide in the corals being ready to go into your systems. Temp 78F, Dkh 8, Calcium 410-550, Magnesium 1400-1500. This system does contain fish, but all fish have gone through a full treatment for ich, velvet, brook, uronema, internal parasites and deworming. While in this system, we find that our light choice does a great job at bringing out the most color that we can get out of our corals (but ironically they aren’t the best lights for displaying those colors). We do recommend Kessils or Radions for most personal display tanks and find these to display the most color pop from our corals. At this point, the coral are just simmering and continuing to get “cooked up” and are ready for you and your display tanks!
