do polyps dry out? will freshwater kill them?

we currently purchased another new tank that was well established. the guy we purchased it from was a good friend and had spent alot of time an money on his tank. he gave us everythin he had that had to deal with this tank including over 200lbs of live rock with assorted corals and polyps was one of the types he gave us. we currently have the rock but not the tank and we were under the impression that the coral would be fine just bein moist. the guy also had an outbreak of bad algae so we scrubbed a few of the rocks but dont know if we can get the rocks wet that have the coral on them since were using freshwater to clean them with. so i guess my questions are: will the polyps dry out? how long can they survive out of water and without food? and will fresh water kill them if we rinse them with it?

 

Yes FW will kill your corals as well as the beneficial bacteria which make the rocks "live". Corals can survive for a few hours out of the water depending on the kind of coral.

 

+1 to vinny, zoas and polyps spend up to 6 hours out of water during low tide daily, so they hold a lot of moisture like a cactus.

 

A quick short rinse of FW would probably not hurt much (it does occasionally rain during low tide ) , but make sure to keep salt water on them. I would avoid it though, if possible.

If nothing else, a rubbermaid tub with saltwater in it and a heater, covered should keep them moist until the tank can be set up.

But the stress will probably cause some mortality anyway....

 

also make sure there arent any air bubbles trapped, this could be catastrophic to your corals. when you get them in the tank rotate them around to make sure you get all the air pockets out.

 

so the rocks are dryin out now since we couldnt save any of the coral, they all were so pretty. we did come up with a new problem... we brought the 180g tank inside to clean it but didnt get to it yet... the ammonia coming off it from the live sand and algae dyin caused us all to get really sick... fyi, if youre ever trying to clean a new tank make sure it is scrubbed out before it goes into ur house learn somethin new every day. we were able to save a few polyps and trees so now were trying to find out how to get them off the rock theyre on and put them in our established tank so they can reproduce if u have any suggestions im happy to hear them