New coral. First time kinda scared

[One fish]

Very scared, I payed 75 for it. I got it and went straight home and placed the bag in the tank, opened the top. Then i had to leave to the store, and after traffic it was about an hour and a half. is that ok? I started mixing my water with the lfs water. its about 50-50. now i have it in a revive coral cleaner with my tank water. After the bath do I put in STRAIGHT IN MY TANK? HELP

[FraggledRock]

yep.

[gone fishin]

Take a breath relax. once done with the revive, then place it in your tank. I like to put them on the bottom and let them get acclimated to my lights and the rest of the tank for a few days before moving them to their new location.

What kind of coral did you get?

In the future try to arrange it so you do not need to run out.

[One fish]

Take a breath relax. once done with the revive, then place it in your tank. I like to put them on the bottom and let them get acclimated to my lights and the rest of the tank for a few days before moving them to their new location.

What kind of coral did you get?

In the future try to arrange it so you do not need to run out.

Great, Thanks for the advise. I just placed it at the bottom. I plan on turning my lights on in about an hour or so. It is a hammer coral. Thanks for helping!

[One fish]

It looks really sad after the coral bath. How long do you think untill it is normal again?

[Coelli]

Give it a day (or 3)... It had a rough day :)

[Mr_I_Dare_You]

It will be fine. Just leave it near the bottom of the tank. Like its already been said, just give it a day or two and it should be fine. It seems like you've acclimated it properly. To be honest, sometimes I just temp match the bag and then drop the coral in. Don't take that advice though I'm just giving you some insight on how resilient some of these corals can be.

[Coelli]

Agreed with Mr. I Dare You - although it goes against what's recommended by many here I also often temp acclimate and do a short swap of water over 15 minutes and haven't lost anything yet. There have been a couple of times when I've come home loaded up with so many frags from shows or a friend's that babying everything just wasn't really feasible.

[Azedenkae]

Haha same here. First time I got everything at once and the bags wouldn't even all fit into the tank. @_@

So I just plopped everything in. XD

Again, just goes to show how resilient they can be. But against what most people would advise.

[One fish]

Great to hear. I hope it does well in my tank.

http://s10.postimg.org/fecq091ut/Full_Size_Render_2.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/fecq091ut/)

[Betta132]

In future, it may be best to buy smallish, cheaper corals until you're sure you can keep them alive with no hitches or nervousness.

[murdock84]

Great to hear. I hope it does well in my tank.

http://s10.postimg.org/fecq091ut/Full_Size_Render_2.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/fecq091ut/)

Isn't that a frogspawn and not a hammer?

[ReeferKimberly]

Looks good. fyi corals like that sell for twenty-ish here. A little harder than a softie but not terribly expensive. As long as water remains stable they are pretty hardy too.

[CuzzA]

That's definitely a nice looking frogspawn, not a hammer.

Here's a true story for you... After setting up my current tank and adding my CUC and a pair of clowns everything was going great. So I decided it was time to buy some nice corals. I visited a few of my LFS's one afternoon and ended up dropping about $500 on a bunch of corals. Most of them had been bagged for at least an hour by the time I got home. At this point the sun had set and I just started floating bags and was beginning to setup multiple drip acclimation stations when, BAM, the power goes out. It's now pitch black in my house I got drip lines running and no life support on my tank. Needless to say, being new to all of this at the time, I started to freak out. My first thought was, I'm going to freaking lose everything!!!

I proceeded to break out the flashlights, candles and cuss storm. Called the power company and they tell me, "Sorry sir, we have no idea when power will be restored." Of course by now all the LFS's are closed, I didn't have any friends who were in the hobby and my heart sunk. Well, to make a long story, longer, after 4 hours of my corals sitting in Tupperware the power finally came on. I proceeded to acclimate and dip everything and put them in the tank. An hour later everything was opened up and looked great.

I guess the moral of the story is corals are really resilient. It wasn't until my nerves calmed down that I thought to myself, "These guys were yanked from an ocean half a world away and spent a lot longer time in bags then this 5 hour episode I just had. It makes sense all will be well." And it was.

The next thing I set up for my tank was my battery backup. ;)

After that, I've only had one other "oh no" moment, but now with the knowledge and experience I've gained the past year there isn't a whole lot that gets me worked up with my tank.

[Pmj]

Yeah that doesn't look like a hammer, maybe a frogspawn, which was my first coral (over a year now) and are very hardy. Most corals are pretty hardy and can be transferred over pretty quickly, although you have to worry about pests (aiptasia, bubble algae, etc.) that may be on the frags. Good luck!

[Pmj]

I meant to say as well, $75 seem excessively high. If you can, look for frag swaps in your area. If I spend $75 at the local frag swaps I've been to, I'm coming home with 5-10 corals. Nice when you are just starting out.

[One fish]

Ok cool! A frogspawn then. Wonder where I got a gamer coral. Anyways the lfs I go to is a bit pricy, but I would rather shop and support them than going to petco or some big chain. I don't think he was trying to rip me off. I love it!
Awesome story CuzzA! Thanks for everyone replys looks a lot better today.

[One fish]

And I am in the dc washington area I will look around for some swap meets.