Zoanthid light acclimation

I had a few zoanthids shipped this week, and per the instructions, acclimated them in the bags and then placed them in the bottom of the tank. They're on plugs with the peg pushed into the sand bed. The instructions said to light acclimate them, starting on the bottom of the tank, and then gradually move them higher to the desired location. My question is, how long is "gradually"? I googled this and got everything from leaving them a few days, to a week, to two weeks, etc. in each location. I tried a search on here under "light acclimation" and didn't find much. I have them off to the side now where nothing is walking on them (yet), but if the pistol shrimp heads back that way, they could be bulldozed in no time. Help please! They've been sitting there since Tuesday.

 

if you plan on moving them up i would do this in the morning as i did. in morning i gradully start my lighting low then slowlly increase the intensity and do the same at night slowlly dimming till eventully all thats burnning are my moonlights leds. wit this prossess you can place them in there final home right after acclamation. it worked great in my case

 

I leave my new corals in place for at least a week before moving them but I think 2 weeks is better.

If you're worried about bulldozing you could also try and put them in their final places and put a few layers of screen or some translucent plastic or something over the tank where they are and gradually remove the layers or move the shading material away so they gradually get more light. Of course the placement and other tank inhabitants might prevent you from doing this, but it's an easy way to do light acclimation in my opinion if you can make it work.

You could also make a little stand out of egg crate or something an inch or so taller than your sand bed and put them on that, then you don't have to worry as much about them.

 

I just floated mine, then placed them in the tank that was it. They've been growing and going nuts ever since. I just placed them in with full lighting and didn't worry about it.

 

Do you know if the lighting they were previously in was a lot weaker than yours? It depends on how much you want to move them up each time. You could move them up every couple days, but just a couple inches. If you wait a week or two between each time you could move them up more.