Kay’s Coral Cove started in Jan 2023 but the idea was quite some time before that as I was a hobbyist. As all hobbyists do, I loved acquiring new coral and adding them to my tank. What I hated about that is the lengthy acclimation process that everyone tells you to do with any coral no matter who’s tank or what store it came from. This is a process any hobbyists should be familiar with. Float to temp, drip acclimate, coral dip (maybe twice), rinse in tank water, then place it in the tank and find the perfect spot for it. Even after doing all that, some corals just don’t open up until a few days or weeks, a 2nd “acclimation” process that we hobbyists deal with. People state, “the coral needs time to get used to your tank and your parameters.”

 

Corals may have gone through multiple systems in a short period of time. From being shipped half way across the world, into a wholesalers tanks, then sold to vendors which means shipping again, and then placed into another tank. This causes high stress and can greatly effect the health of the coral.

 

I wanted to come up with a way to offer premium and healthy corals that have the best chance at flourishing as soon as they get into your tank!

 

Tank conditioned, pest free and most of all, healthy corals. No coral flipping here.

In order to offer the best corals for you, it means time and dedication. Taking the hard work out for you. We have evolved our process over the years and found what many of our customers will tell you to be the best method for coral health and ease of transition into your tanks. Most of our clients message us 15 min after they place the corals in their tank saying how open and happy they are already! We take great pride in this and love building a great long term relationship with out clients.

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Our Intake Process

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We have a very thorough intake process for any new incoming corals we take in. This means dipping (sometimes twice), and closely inspecting, cleaning, scraping and doing all we can to eliminate pests from the start. From there we place them in a separate stand alone system, our "rehab" tank. We no longer run a full quarantine but offer our services to fully quarantine any corals you want to purchase for an extra fee.

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Coral "Rehab"

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We like to call the next step, coral rehab. Corals stay in our rehab tank for a minimum of 6-8 weeks before being offered up for sale. This is the time we treat them to get the healthy and over all the shock from shipping and tank transfers. During this time we check and inspect them daily, treat for any pests that may have made it through the initial treatment, feed them and let them settle in and get fat and healthy. 

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Our Main System

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Once we've given the corals enough time to get over any shipping stresses, we inspect and evaluate if they are ready to be offered for sale. This means beautiful colors, full lush corals, and fat healthy flesh bands.

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Our sale system is kept at what we’ve found to be the general hobbyist’s parameters to aide in the corals being ready to go into your systems with the least amount of coral stress. Temp 78F, Dkh 8, Calcium 410-550, Magnesium 1400-1500. This system does contain fish, but all fish have gone through a full treatment for ich, velvet, brook, uronema, internal parasites and deworming. While in this system, we find that our light choice does a great job at bringing out the most color that we can get out of our corals (but ironically they aren’t the best lights for displaying those colors). We do recommend Kessils or Radions for most personal display tanks and find these to display the most color pop from our corals. At this point, the coral are just simmering and continuing to get “cooked up” and are ready for you and your display tanks! Message us today to schedule an appointment to come see our corals in person!

 

No Dip or Drip Required.

 

We know...this statement may not be for everyone, but we do advocate to do you own method until you’ve built up enough trust in our process. Our end goal was for you to bring coral home, and have a max of 15min from the time of floating to having it inside your tank. We’ve found this provides the least amount of stress to both YOU and the corals!

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If you have any further questions about our process, please don’t hesitate to reach out and contact us to ask about it.