Got RTN mailorder!

[Covey]

I got my order from Reefer Madness 4 days ago. I ordered 10 frags. I got 12 SPS frags for $160 shipped. I picked them up at Fedex at 8:30 in the morning. Followed RM's acclamation guidelines. I noticed that one of the pink acros had "bleaching". I called RM and the said to frag off a good piece of it and toss the rest. They didn't say it was RTN and I have never had RTN so i did what they said. They offered to replace the frag for free on my next order (I got two free frags anyway so I wasn't to miffed). Now the frags were all siting pretty close to each other on the bottom of the tank. RM said not to mount them for 4-5 days or that would increase the chances of RTN, so there just sitting on the sand. Here were it gets ugly. Noticed two of the neighboring frags started to show signs of RTN. I fragged those and moved them far away from the heathly frags. I seem to have stopped the RTN from spreading and everything seem healthy now.

Heres the question. I have only got corals mail-ordered twice, SPS once, so I am wondering if this is to be expected or should I be outraged at Reefer Madness?

[Bruce]

1 question, on ur sig, what do u mean by direct sunlight? is ur tank outside? in a 75gal tank that might cause some problems with new coral frags. in nature the reefs a like 10-15 feet below the surface, the bad sun rays r filtered out once they get to the corals, with a tank the water is not deep enough to filter it fully, it wouldnt effect larger corals, but the smaller ones might be a little bit finikey...as for the RTN, for mail order frags, there is always the chance that they can be stressed during the process...hopefully they can pull through, im lucky i just got 12 frags for 150 today and all the corals seem fine but i picked them up local (remember the postal workers dont know what they r doing with corals ) as long as u did all the aclimation right, he will prolly replace the corals u lost, hope they pull though. also if he lets u get more, maybe try somthing else than acros, they seem to be a bit timid. Dont be mad be glad, glad ware imo when i was at their place they are defenitly one of the top 3 stores i have ever been 2, so many awsome frags and great deals, just a bit of bad luck. hope everything works out

[Matt Rogers]

Originally Posted by Covey

Heres the question. I have only got corals mail-ordered twice, SPS once, so I am wondering if this is to be expected or should I be outraged at Reefer Madness?

I wouldn't get mad at them. It's cool they offered to replace the frags. So many variables with RTN, if that is what it is, and throw in the fact that the corals were shipped and such, that's a lot of stress.

I am currently going through what I think is some RTN going around in my tank. What's interesting is some of the corals that took a hit are rebounding and growing back over the dead spots. I hope the same happens to yours!

[Covey]

Thanks guys. The one piece was RTNing right out of the box. So It wasn't the light. I when thru there whole acclamation process laid out on the website. Everything is under control now. 10 out the 12 frags I received never had any problems. I only ordered 10 they sent be two free frags anyway. One frag I refragged and saved. One I tired to frag but the frag died to a shame though it was a nice pink Acro

FYI Bruce the true light loving corals can be in very shallow waters. A lot of SPS will grow all the way to the point when there just under water at low tide. Some leather coral grow in water so shallow that there above water at low tide! Drying out in the sun until the tide come back. 15 minutes after they are submerged they are back to normal with their polyps out!

[Bruce]

ya ive seen that, i think the biggest problem would be algae control