The first hour matters more than the first month. How you acclimate and dip a new coral decides whether it settles in and thrives or sulks for weeks. The good news: a lot of what we sell is grown out at our own farm in the Florida Keys and conditioned at the Key West shop — already used to aquarium light, flow and feeding — and it ships to you UPS Next Day Air with a live arrival guarantee. The rest of our livestock — gorgonians, Ricordea, anemones, inverts, macroalgae and some fish — is sustainably collected from Keys waters under our own commercial marine life license. Either way it skips the week in a bag from the other side of the planet, and that gives you a real head start. This guide walks you through exactly what to do the moment your box arrives.
New to any of the terms below? Every one is defined in our Coral Glossary →
What you’ll need
- A clean bucket or container used only for aquarium water (never soap)
- A length of airline tubing for drip acclimation, plus a control valve or a few loose knots
- A separate small container for dipping
- A coral dip — we use and stock Two Little Fishies ReVive Coral Cleaner; Coral Rx and Bayer Advanced work too
- Rinse water: a cup of clean saltwater from your tank or fresh mixed saltwater at the same temperature
- Turkey baster or pipette
- Coral cutters or tweezers (for handling frag plugs, not the coral tissue)
- Gloves — many corals carry palytoxin and other irritants; protect your skin and eyes
Step 1 — Temperature acclimation (10–15 minutes)
Open the box promptly, but don’t rush the coral into the tank. Float the sealed bag in your display or a container for 10–15 minutes so the water temperature equalizes. Keep the lights off — corals ship in the dark and a blast of bright light on top of the stress of travel is the fastest way to bleach a healthy piece. Dim or dark for the first day is your friend.
Step 2 — Drip acclimation (20–40 minutes)
Coral tolerates shipping well, but the water in the bag has drifted in pH, salinity, and temperature during transit. A slow drip lets the coral adjust to your parameters gradually instead of all at once.
- Gently pour the coral and its bag water into your clean container. Keep the coral fully submerged the whole time.
- Start a siphon from your display tank into the container using the airline tubing.
- Tie a loose knot in the tubing (or use the valve) to slow the flow to roughly 2–4 drips per second.
- Let the water volume in the container double over 20–40 minutes, then discard about half and repeat once.
You are not trying to match parameters perfectly — you are trying to change them slowly. If your tank and our systems are close on salinity (we keep ours at natural seawater levels, about 1.025–1.026), this goes quickly.
Step 3 — Dip every new coral
Dipping is non-negotiable, even with captive-grown coral from a clean system. It’s cheap insurance against hitchhikers — flatworms, nudibranchs, red bugs, and their eggs — that can ride in on a frag plug and later wreck a tank. Dip before anything touches your display.
⚠ One exception: Euphyllia. Torches, hammers and frogspawn have large, soft, fleshy polyps, and the standard dip is harder on them than on anything else you’ll buy.
For those pieces, dip at roughly half the labeled concentration for about five minutes, and skip the turkey baster entirely — the tissue tears, and every tear is an entry point for infection. Swish gently instead. Full protocol in our Torch Coral Care Guide →
- Mix the coral dip with tank water in your small dipping container per the product’s directions.
- Submerge the coral and swish gently for the recommended time (usually 5–15 minutes). Euphyllia: half strength, about five minutes — see the note above.
- Use a turkey baster to blow water across the coral and flush out pests hiding in the base and under the tissue. Skip this step for Euphyllia — swish gently instead.
- Lift the coral out and rinse it in clean saltwater so you don’t carry dip chemicals into your display.
- Inspect the plug and base. If you see pests or eggs, snip off the very bottom of the plug or re-dip.
Never pour dip water into your tank. Discard it down the drain.
Step 4 — Placement & recovery
Glue the frag plug down before you walk away — a coral that tumbles in the night lands upside down and burns. A dab of CorAffix gel on a dry plug, pressed onto dry rock, sets in seconds. Then place the coral low in the tank and in moderate flow for the first few days, regardless of where it will eventually live. Let it recover from shipping before you expose it to your brightest light or strongest current. Over 1–2 weeks, move it up gradually toward its target spot, watching for good polyp extension and color.
Not sure where a given coral belongs? Every coral on our site carries a CARE INFORMATION table with its ideal lighting, flow, feeding, placement, and water parameters. Browse the shop →
The first 48 hours
- Keep lights low. Ramp back to normal intensity over several days.
- Don’t panic if it looks unhappy. Closed polyps, retracted tentacles, and a little slime are normal shipping stress. Most pieces open within a day or two.
- Don’t feed the coral yet. Wait until it’s opening normally before target feeding.
- Leave it alone. Resist the urge to move it repeatedly — pick a recovery spot and let it settle.
Water parameters worth keeping steady
Stability beats perfection. Corals handle a slightly “off” number far better than a number that swings. Aim to hold these steady:
- Salinity: 1.025–1.026
- Temperature: 76–78°F
- Alkalinity: 8–9 dKH
- Calcium: 400–450 ppm
- Magnesium: 1300–1400 ppm
- Nitrate: 2–10 ppm · Phosphate: 0.03–0.10 ppm (not zero — corals need some nutrients)
Troubleshooting
Coral won’t open after 2–3 days. Check flow (too strong?), light (too intense too soon?), and placement. Move it lower and to gentler flow and give it time.
Tissue receding or “melting.” Usually a sign of an unstable parameter or a pest you missed. Re-dip and inspect the base, and test your water for alkalinity swings. If the coral is a torch, hammer or frogspawn, dip gently or not at all until you’ve ruled out an alkalinity swing — a second hard dip on already-stressed Euphyllia tissue does more harm than good. See our Torch Coral Care Guide →
You spot a hitchhiker later. Remove the coral, re-dip, and inspect. See our glossary for pest terms, or call the shop — we’ve seen them all.
Why our coral acclimates easier
Coral shipped in from overseas has to adjust twice — once to captivity and again to your tank. Our grown-out stock is raised in an aquarium system, so it’s already used to captive light, flow, and feeding. Our collected stock comes out of water a few miles from here, at the same temperature and photoperiod it’s going to live in. Either way it skips the week in a bag from the other side of the planet. Combined with UPS Next Day Air shipping and our live arrival guarantee, that’s the closest thing to a sure bet in this hobby. Learn our story →
Talk to us before you buy
We’re a working coral farm and saltwater shop in Key West — not a warehouse. If you’re not sure whether a piece suits your tank, ask first. We would rather talk you out of the wrong coral than replace it for you later.
- Book a live consultation → — 30 or 60 minutes with us, scheduled right here on the site. Bring photos of your tank.
- Visit the shop → — Mon & Fri 10:30–6:30, Sat 11–6, Sun 11–5. Tue–Thu closed to the public for fish collecting and aquarium maintenance. Come see the systems and pick your own piece.
- Send us a message → — if you would rather write it out.