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My first coral

So I got my very first coral today. It's a torch.

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How long does it usually take for them to extend out again?
 
Cool torch coral!

Assuming your tank conditions aren't too far different from the original tank, it should extend out in a couple of hours.

Sometimes the LFS or person you bought the corals from don't do a great job maintaining their tanks. Sometimes they get lazy or are understaffed and they let their salinity get to 1.030. That's way too high and is way saltier than most of our reef tanks. Buying a coral and dropping it into a tank that is different in water parameters can shock some corals.

Here's what I do when I put new corals into my tank.

1) Empty the the coral and water into a bucket or small container. I use a 1000mL cup.
2) Slowly add water from your tank into the cup. This slowly changes the chemistry of the water to allow the new coral to adjust to your tank chemistry.
3) Use a coral dip to knock off/kill pest species.
4) Rinse off the coral dip.
5) Put the coral in the tank.

Here's my link on what I do when putting corals into a tank.

There are a lot of pest species that can give you headaches.
Red planaria "flat worms" can overpopulate your tank, resulting in these ugly red worms covering your glass.
Gorilla crabs can eat corals
Zoa eating nudibranchs/spiders will eat your zoas!


Based on talking to club members, I would say that MOST of us at least dip corals. There's widespread agreement that pest species do exist lol. Some of us don't acclimate corals, usually dip and then stick them in. However I've bought a lot of corals from a lot of different places and I've seen how different tank chemistrys can be from the "accepted norm". I've seen tanks with corals at 1.030 sg and some tanks with corals at 1.020 sg.
 
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Awesome. I did it exactly how you described. By the evening time she was already extending her tenticles.

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I got her from Neptune Aquatics by the way. They seem to do a pretty good job of keeping up their tanks.
 
Neptune Aquatics is great.

When there are pest issues, Robert and Cerissa are on it and will fight to deal with them. See any issues? Let them know and they will try and fix them.

I constantly hear them asking their employees "you did the water change, the salinity is 1.026 right?".

Thats affective upper level management. I really like their store and I see them being around long term.

Glad to see your torch coral is doing well :)
 
@Flagg37 I have a green pocillopora sps frag if you want it. Free. That is if you want to try out sps

That would be awesome. I'd love to give it a shot. The only thing I'm concerned about is having enough light. One of the reasons I got a torch is because they don't need as much light. I'll give it a shot though and stick it right up top as close to the light as possible. PM me and we can set up a meet up.
 
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