Having a hard time acclimating my SPS corals when received from shipping
 

Hey all. So i'm new to the SPS world. I've had my tank running for about a year but only started trying to raise SPS corals for 3 months now. I got in a overnight shipment from Texas to Nevada about 6 weeks ago. On this first shipment, the shipping method looked good, but half the corals when i took them out of their cups, the water stunk a little like the corals had been stressing during shipment. The first shipment i only had about a 50% survival rate. Well, 6 weeks later i decided to give it another try. The 2nd shipment, the corals looked way healthier, larger chunkier pieces and i thought it would go well----but just like the original shipment, the SPSs seemed to go through a terrible shock when intoducing into my tank. I talked to the shipper and our parameters are almost identical. Note--- on that first shipment, 2 out of the 5 literally looked 75% dead---what i mean by dead is literally bleached white or skin mostly removed---the weird thing is--- even though i tossed 5 out of the first 10, i desperately stuck with these 2. Before i knew it---after about 2.5 weeks? the 2 almost dead SPSs seemed to literally come back to life!! Even regrowing their skin--- So in this shipment---even more of them look almost dead. I had a LFS owner reccomend trying to give these stressed SPS a iodine dip to bring them back to life. Well, after all that--- i just sit and wait---to see what happens. Does anyone have a reccomendation on what i can do to improve received SPSs when i receive them in overnight shipping to acclimate them better for better survival success?? Much appreciated.

I believe i found the reason why i was losing so many SPS from the same shipper
 

So, i went over my situation with a SPS guru at my LFS----he was asking me how the shipper was mailing me my SPS frags---he was sending them overnight from Texas to Nevada---almost everything looked good except one major thing. He was packing each frag in a very very small container---maybe the size of a half cup or less---this initially looks like a good idea for shipping purposes to keep the frag stable and not bouncing around much right? wrong---when frags are shipped, they go through a ton of stress, temperature fluctations, movement---and therefore expel way more waste and toxic juices in self defense----this might be fine for a one hour transport---but not for a 24 hour overnight transport. My frags i was ordering were literally poisoning themselves in their own excreted defense juices and waste. When i would pop open the shipping cups, they all stank very strong of rotten fish odor. I'm not sure of other ways frags are shipped. I'm thinking having them shipped in larger leak proof bags so there is more room for the water and not so high of concentration of their waste would be a more successful way to ship frags---but im not really sure.

Hi can you not get them to use bigger pots or bags then add a small amount of carbon its what i do when sending any corals over night good luck

I’m lucky. I have lots of local reefers that I swap with and get very little shipping. The last shipment I received about a year ago was from BC. The bags my frags were shipped in were very small guessing 2-3 fluid oz of water but I had 100% survival. Well shipping survival, I did kill moist of them several months later LOL :(

Temperature is the big killer, were they in an insulated box?

try to get smaller frags which are encrusted .

Shipping SPS continued
 

These were smaller encrusted frags. The box was insulated very nicely. Might try one more time in the future but to be honest---the LFS SPS specials going on in the holidays---where im buying 2 COLONIES of SPS specimens for 100 versus paying 100 for 10 frags about 10% of the size as one of the colonies---hard for me to justify to try again when im getting such a good deal locally.