Ordering corals online

[glstine]

I thought I would try to order some corals online, so I ordered some zoa's, frogspawn, mushrooms and an orange sun polyp. They all seem okay, except one of the zoa's and orange sun polyp. They don't look dead really, but neither have opened and I received them four days ago. How much time should I give them?

Don't think I'll order livestock online again, pretty disappointing.

[Mebbid]

The orange sun polyps generally open up at night and need to be fed. The zoanthids might not be happy with their placement. Have you tried moving them?

[glstine]

I have tried moving it up high, but, they are mounted on a light plastic disk and my lawnmower blenny keeps knocking them down. So, right now, they are on the sand. I have a quad T5 with 156W on a 30 gallon.

Which brings up another question I posted in the equipment section. I just got a 250W MH light with 4 T5's for a total of 346W. Is that to much for a 30 gallon? I set it up and ran it for a bit but water temp started rising so I took it down and put other light back. I ordered a hanging kit for it to raise it higher.

[Masoniac]

It seems like over kill to me.

[Mebbid]

It does sound like too much. Zoanthids generally won't open up if its too bright. You might try to cut out the t5s and see how that works.

[Jmkb02]

That's a lot of light for zoas, I would try turning off a bulb or two and see if you can acclimate it over time. Also whenever I order online I try to find what kind of lighting they are currently under. Well anywhere for that fact, but it makes a big difference going from t5 to blasting them with LEDs or mh.

[glstine]

I got a hanging kit for the light, was going to start with it a couple of feet over the tank and lower it over time, keeping an eye on everything and temp. I may just bite the bullet and order an LED, wish I'd read the thread on lighting before I ordered, the MH was kind of an impulse buy. I've got a FS around the corner from me that I frequent, they are getting more into saltwater, might see if I can work some sort of trade with them.

Good news is, the sun coral is alive and well.