Just ordered some aussies does this one look healthy?

[spankey]

I just ordered two aussie acan pieces from a vendor that is not an RC sponsor so I would like to leave the name out if that is OK. They are a reputable vendor on another site though so this is why I tried them.

Here are two photos of the acans I bought. The colony on the left is one of them, the green ones. They look good and were open as soon as they were taken out of the bag.

The pics are a tad saturated as I wanted to shot them as fast as possible and didn't adjust the camera to send the photos to the vendor.

Now this shot is of the other acans I purchased. The photo on the website that I failed to save and which was removed overnight looked plump and full.
This is what I got today. Do these look healthy? You can see the white skeleton under the flesh around the polyps and the polyps are still retracted for almost 7 hours now.

Is is possible these were not in the best of shape before they even shipped? I find it hard to swallow that the one colony looks great and the other one looks like it was dying before shipping? Shipping was overnight and everything was packaged perfectly......

The vendor offers a live guarantee but these aren't dead yet? They also offer full credit but you have to pay shipping again! TO me this is bogus. So I paid for the coral which they are out of now so I won't have this one again, and pay another $45 just to use my money again! Are other vendors like this?

Can anyone offer me some insight?
Thanks
Spankey

 

[sufunk]

Looking at the skeleton, i would say that that piece was fragged VERY recently. May not have had quite enough time to heal up and is really stressed from shipping.

It doesnt look horrible though. Make sure it has good water, decent flow and decent light and try feeding it. They are pretty hardy so i think you should be ok.

 

[spankey]

Well the fragging part might be true however it looked nothing like this on the website. The shape is the same but the health is night and day?

 

[neyugn0w01]

Looks deflated. Give it a few hrs and it will be recover.

 

[sufunk]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12066323#post12066323 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by spankey
Well the fragging part might be true however it looked nothing like this on the website. The shape is the same but the health is night and day?

I've gotten ones and after acclimating and dipping them, they looked just as bad as that one but recover in a few hours to a day or 2. Other ones, look great and puffy after an hour

They all adjust and acclimate differently so i would just guess the 2nd one didnt ship as well for whatever reason. Like i said, it doesnt look horrible. I'd be pretty surprised if it wasnt fine in a few days.

 

[spankey]

Gosh I sure hope so. I have my fingers crossed!

I will update after a day or so.

Thanks guys.

Also is there a trick to get any of these to have polyps out during the day? I feed the tank everyother day and at night these guys are hairy, just not during the day. By me saying these guys I mean all my acans, not the ones I just got! LOL

 

[ianiwane]

Its pretty weird but one of my aussie acans is the most sensitive thing in my tank. If I don't do my regular water changes and change my phosphate media it closes up. Frist thing to react while all my sps are fine.

 

[ianiwane]

BTW did you dip it at all before you put it in your tank. You may want to dip it in some TMPCC.

 

[PnoyReefeR]

It will be fine.. Give it some time to heal as previous guy posted above that it looks like it was just fragged.. thanks

 

[sufunk]

How's it looking today? any better?

 

[spankey]

No- No better?

 

[sufunk]

Hmmm. well, that stinks but i wouldnt lose hope just yet. They can go thru phases ,ime.

One acan lord colony i have with about 50 heads spent about 4-5 days last week looking just like yours, completely sucked in and looking really bad for no apparent reason. After 3 days, i was pretty sure something was wrong and was preparing for it to start dying but all of a sudden, again for no apparent reason, yesterday it looked great and is back to normal

I would still just leave it be, dont mess with it or move it, try and feed it and keep your fingers crossed. Hopefully, it will be fine.

 

[zeppelin]

I have to agree that it was a very fresh frag. The skeleton looks freshly cut, and none of the flesh looks to be healed much at all. It could have looked great in the sellers tank, but a fresh cut acan frag can do very poorly in shipping. IMO, acan frags should be given at least 2 weeks to heal before even thinking about shipping them.

Good luck though. I would document with pics its progression/regression, and hold the seller accountable if it doesn't make it.

Giving it lower light and flow are your best bets at it healing up and surviving. If you start to see flesh melting off the edges, document it with pics, then frag the dying flesh off or it can consume the entire frag. Having said that, I have seen frags much worse off do a complete turnaround and look great in a month. Again, good luck with the frag.

 

[ianiwane]

Too me it actually looks like the cut area is healed. I don't think it was a fresh frag. On a fresh frag you would not have that the maroon/brown color on the cut area.

 

[sufunk]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12079582#post12079582 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by ianiwane
Too me it actually looks like the cut area is healed. I don't think it was a fresh frag. On a fresh frag you would not have that the maroon/brown color on the cut area.

I guess my screens must be bad at home and at the office because i'm not seeing any maroon/brown other than one tiny spot in the middle. Skeleton looks pretty bone white to me

 

[ianiwane]

If it were a fresh cut you would have no tissue (the brown/maroon area) in the fresh cut area. Its pretty obvious to me.

 

[sufunk]

Well, it's pretty obvious to me and about everyone else who has posted that the skeleton is still pretty much bone white and has NO tissue growing around the edge in most places. Skeleton doesnt stay bone white in my tank or anyone else's tank i know, for more than a few days. Seems pretty obvious to me.

Regardless, how's it doing today Spankey? any better? any luck trying to feed it?

 

[zeppelin]

Ya, a healed frag will not have a white skeleton like that. The skeleton should be dulling, and there would be allot more flesh hanging over the edges than that. What I see is a fresh cut frag that settled back in to where the flesh just puffed back up. Maybe a couple days or so. No new growth showing the frag healing. To me its a good couple weeks from being ready to ship without concern. I like to see a nicely dulled skeleton and the polyps showing noticable healed growth before I would ship. Respect for the coral's survival should always come before the $$$ :smokin:

I agree, give us an update.

 

[Ebn]

Doesn't look like a fresh cut frag to me. You can see the polyps have their overall round shape on the edge of the cut. On a fresh cut frag, you'll have torn tissue and not shaped polyps. You can easily see it on the top and bottom edges of the cut; those polyps are fully healed and starting to flow over.

 

[acro76]

I'd say it's been fragged sometime between a week and maybe a day or two before shipping. The coral should be fine, a little target feeding probably wouldn't hurt with some mysis shrimp, cyclopeeze, or something similar.

Any vendor who takes customer service seriously should either credit a DOA promply or make up the loss on the next shipment. Either way, you should not have to order to get the issue resolved.

Corals go through a lot of stress during fragging and shipping, so I would inform the vendor and let them know your concerns. I've had some very stressed corals take 3 to 4 months to get full color and start growing after shipping! Most Acan frags should be fine after a few weeks though.