Welcoming Galaxea fascicularis to the Cnidarian Immunity Lab!

• This post describes the onboarding process of Galaxea fascicularis to the Cnidarian Immunity lab at RSMAES.

Source and Shipping

• The corals were purchased from Unique corals and our contact was Emilio (emilio.uniquecorals@gmail.com).
• The corals were harvested from Australia (add coordinates) on (add date)
• The 10 colonies were shipped to Unique corals on (add date)
• Unique corals shipped them to the Cnidaian Immunity lab at 5pm (PST) on Monday November 14th and they arrived at 10:30 AM (EST) at RSMAES

Tank Prep

• Prior to arrival, David Ehrens (lab manager) and I build a recirculating tank system that can be both open and closed system.
• This allows us keep the recircculating water system separate from the Caribbean coral tanks.

Tank conditions as of 20221108

Measurement	Unique Corals	Cnimmunity Lab
Salinity	35	36.5
pH	NA	8.2
Nitrate	10-15	NA
Calcium	420	440
Alkalinity	8	7.3
Magnesium	1350	1380
Temperature	25	28.3
Light	NA	111-160

20221115

Arrival

• Once they arrived to RSMAES, Natalia (post doc) and I took the corals out of the transport bags and placed them into recircuclating tank
• We photographed each coral with the Coral Watch Color Chart:

• We then adjust the colonies and lights to make sure all of the corals were reciving 110-160 PAR using an apogee light meter

Iodine soak

• Aprroximately 1 hour later, David and I performed an iodine bath with Lugol Solution for each coloing using the following protocol:
  • 0.5 mL per L of water, therefore 2.5mL of Lugol Solution in 5L of seawater
  • The corals were placed in the bath for 10 minutes with occasional water movement and pipetting
  • Visible expulsion of benthic invertebrates

20221116

• Corals looked visibily healthy with no tissue loss compared to yesterday.

• Corals were fed with Reef Roids by David

  • Water and pumps were turned off
  • X concentration of reef roids were fed
  • Water and pumps were turned back on 1 hour later