Jestersix

Interesting pic of exposed reef

A week ago, my GFCI tripped, leaving my tank without power. The water level in the tank was left lower than an acrylic shelf I had that held some frags (including my purple gorgonian stick and some frag workshop acros). Well, I wasn't surprised to find the part of the gorgonian that was dry dead (it now looks like a purple corn dog on a stick) and some of the acros dead, but I was amazed that some of the acros just bounced back, even after something like 6-7 hours (according to my light timers, which were showing around 12pm when they stopped) out of the water!

Oddly, I have two frags of an sps that were from the same mother colony (not frag swap corals) and one totally bleached out and died the next day, while it's sibling recovered. One of the ASAP supplied frags from the workshop (on a plastic bolt) was dried, but has also gone back to it's previous shape (with polyps not fully extended).

I'm amazed at that picture, and really surprised that they can sit in the sun like that. But, I suppose the truth is that they are NOT FISH, and so they "breathe" differently. Amazing... Great pic!

V
 
Which brings us to the question of why so many people think it's better to ship in a bag full of bacteria laden soup rather than a "moist" pack. We are setting up some experiments here in Tonga to test the viability of moist packing and the preliminary results look extremely promising.
For example, a yellow w/ pink tip mille was kept at 100% humidity but never submerged for 24 hours. There was a 20 degree farenheit temp swing during that time and the coral polyped up 1/2 hour after returning to the tank. Keep in mind that this is one of the species EVERYONE has a hard time shipping because they're so "sensitive".
Sensitive to sitting in their own waste products seems more like it.
I'll be setting up round 2 of the experiments tonight.
Cheers-Jim
 
Cool, save weight with no extra water in shipping. I have seen this done with snails being shipped from GARF. Jim what was the low temp in the 20 degree shift? Feel free to ask us to be a test shippies, we can tell you how the frag does over distance and stress. : )
 
Apon said:
Feel free to ask us to be a test shippies, we can tell you how the frag does over distance and stress. : )
Hahaha... ok, I'm the next volunteer after Arnold :)

Might be a cool way to do thermos trades too.

Norman.
 
I guess sitting on a shelf above my power-less tank was not enough humidity to keep my (now dead) corals alive. But the extremely low humidity in our houses in winter has got to be completely opposite of the humidity of a tropical reef poking out of an ocean! On the other hand, my corals didn't have the sun shining on it either!

Speaking of the sun, I'm guessing that exposed reefs must get a huge blast of full strength unfiltered sunshine (assuming they are exposed in the daytime)... how does that affect their xoozanthellae, I wonder? Does that help give them extra energy to overcome the low moisture? I'm picturing a mountain climber on Everest, sitting in a tent eating a steak dinner...... does he have more stored energy due to the big feeding? Or is the thin air sucking his strength away?

In anycase, I hope that the "moist shipping" technique turns out to be viable, as I'm sure we all would love to see lower shipping rates! Now if only there was a way to make buckets of salt lighter too! (and it's already dry! ;) )

V
 
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