New BTA - acclimation/placement

[ceruleanspiral]

My tank is 9 months old. I ordered a BTA and it will be here Wednesday next week. I'm seeing conflicting advice about acclimation and I'm having a bit of nerves. I got an urchin last week and did drip acclimation for 1 hour. It seems fine since, scooting around the tank and eating.

For a nem, I am seeing to acclimate for anywhere from 1 to 2 hours, *or* to just temp + adding small pours of water into the bag over 20 minutes and get them out of shipping water ASAP (if they look healthy). It is coming to Florida from California overnight.

Should I get a cup (like this), or put it directly on a rock? I bought some long nitrile gloves to handle it, but I want to be super careful not to hurt it. What if it sticks to the bag though? Should I drip acclimate or just temp plus add a bit of water over short period of time, and place in tank immediately if the nem looks healthy? What if it sticks to the bucket? My biggest issue with drip acclimation is that the ambient air, thus bucket is colder than my tank. I turned off my a/c for my urchin so it would be warmer, but there is still a temp fluctuation there with slow drip, maybe 3-4 degrees.

I have 2 wave maker pumps that came with sponge covers, are those adequate or do I still need to get pantyhose to put over them? I plan to be home all day the day of the delivery, so I can watch it. I do have corals, but they are all on frags so if it settles somewhere there is coral I can move them. Mostly zoas.

*Also- I know it will walk where it wants, but where should I put it initially? Where I am hoping it will go, or far/near to the light?

 

[C_AWOL]

From personal experience, if you're able to pre-match the salinity to whatever the shippers source water is such as 1.025, then temperature matching via floating and an optional minimal drip acclimation would be more than adequate.

If the shipping water looks fouled then I would strongly suggest getting the anemone out of the water asap and preferably into a holding tank (if possible) rather than adding it directly to the display.

As long as the sponge covers adequately cover the powerheads (leaving no large open crevasses) then that should be adequate enough for anemone protection for the most part and is also recommended to be used all the time since new and/or old anemones may wander/detach and end up as mush due to said powerheads

Lastly as far as placement is concerned, they will likely move no matter where you place them but anything holey or has nooks/crannies will be the most likely areas as far is where it may settle (thus making potentially more optimal placing areas). Placing it where direct flow or lack of shading areas aren't recommended since they seem to like indirect flow and being able to have a retreating area to adjust to new lighting types