acclimatize coral?

[JTang]

Originally Posted by Douglas

Yes, that's my temp swing. The MH heat things up, during the day. I have had some higher temps over the last couple of weeks, because of the summer heat. Temps of a high as 84.5 a few days, but am trying to keep that at a more even level. I will try to raise my cal and mag. The mag seems to be the tricky one to keep at a more even level. Still very depressing to see whole colonies die in a couple of days. I think in the future, i'll acclimatize my larger, more costly, pieces of corals. Just to try to give them the best chanced at surviving.

84.5 sounds pretty high. I was told (Paul @ Oceanic Corals) that 82 is quite high for SPS. Your new coral might not be used to the high temp. Well, I should let the experts talk since I'm still new to reef.... LOL

[PFoster]

I dip all my coral (especially sps) but I dont acclimate them.

It sounds like you could have 2 potential issues there.

First off the temp is WAY too high. A lot of these sps could be coming directly from the reef crest where the temp is much lower. Several years ago I have my temp go up to the 84-85 degree range and I lost a several LARGE and very well establish deep water colonies.

Second you could also be shocking them with too much lighting. When you first introduce sps to your system from the wild I would recomend starting them lower in the tank and gradually bringing them higher. Raising your lights or reducing your photo period would also help with this as pointed out in a previous post.

IMO your other parameters are just about spot on.
I like my mag around 1350 and Ca at 400 but thats also at a salinity of 1.026

BTW dont forget to calibrate your refract!
And NOT with RO water!!