Quarantined | Candy Cane Coral

What “Quarantined” means

Every animal sold under this listing goes through YoCamron’s Aquatics full quarantine program — treated preventively for the common pathogens, observed daily, and confirmed eating — before it goes home with you.

Most livestock losses in this hobby aren’t bad luck. They’re pathogens that arrive with a new animal — ich, velvet, gill and body flukes, internal parasites — and stay invisible for the first 1–2 weeks while the animal is stressed from shipping. By the time you can see the problem, it’s in your display tank, and every animal you own is in the fight. Quarantine exists to run out that clock in our tanks instead of yours.

Our process

• Dedicated quarantine systems, separate from our display and sale tanks.
• Preventive treatment for the pathogens that actually kill new arrivals, instead of waiting for symptoms.
• Daily observation — breathing rate, body condition, behavior — so problems get caught while they’re still small.
• Feeding confirmation. Nothing goes home until it’s eating in front of us. An animal that eats is an animal that travels well.

Quarantined to order

Nothing we sell online is pre-quarantined and waiting on a shelf. Every quarantined animal is quarantined to order — your purchase starts the process, and the clock starts the day your animal reaches our facility.

For a saltwater invertebrate like this one, plan on up to 76 days before it goes home.

Add up to two more weeks in front of that. If we do not already have the animal in-house, sourcing it is the first step — and that time sits on top of the window above.

This is not a rush purchase, and it can’t be turned into one — the entire value of quarantine is time. If you need your livestock by a particular date, contact us before you order and we’ll schedule the arrival around it. If you need something this week, the non-quarantined listing is the honest choice. The full process — and how to decide which tier is yours — is explained in Quarantined vs Non-Quarantined.

The guarantees

• Shipped — Early AM Overnight only: 48-hour live arrival guarantee from confirmed delivery. Next Day Air (standard Overnight), 2-Day and USPS Priority carry no live arrival guarantee, on any tier.
• Local pickup or delivery: 28-day live guarantee — bring a water sample from your aquarium so we can test it before your livestock goes home with you.
• Maintenance clients: 60-day live guarantee on any livestock you buy from us, for as long as we service your aquarium on a plan of at least twice a month — weekly, every 10 days, or biweekly. Monthly plans carry 28 days. Nobody else in the trade puts that in writing.
• Sourcing: if the animal is not already in-house, add up to two more weeks in front of the window above — that applies on every tier.
• Claims: video of the sealed, unopened bag, opened on camera, with the animal on a white paper towel, inside the window.

Why quarantined is the right choice

If you have an established display tank, the math is simple: the premium on a quarantined animal is small next to the cost of treating — or losing — everything already in your tank. It also means you can skip running a hospital tank at home, which done properly is its own aquarium, its own months of patience, and its own chance to get something wrong.

The honest caveat: many of these species are also available from us non-quarantined for less. Those carry a 1-hour live arrival window on Early AM Overnight — or 24 hours on local pickup or delivery with a tested water sample — and no refunds, returns, or credits beyond that. There is also a middle rung: the Lightly Medicated listing gets one short prophylactic course and is covered for 24 hours on Early AM Overnight, or 7 days on local pickup or delivery with a tested water sample. Next Day Air (standard Overnight), 2-Day and USPS Priority carry no live arrival guarantee, on any tier. If you already run a proper quarantine setup at home, that’s a fair trade and you should take it. If you don’t, this listing is the right one. (You’ll sometimes see “quarantined” abbreviated as QT — same thing.)

Candy Cane Coral (Caulastraea furcata), also called Trumpet Coral, grows in tight clusters of tube-like corallites that each end in a fleshy polyp striped in a way that genuinely does resemble the candy it’s named for. It’s one of the more forgiving LPS corals for a newer reef keeper — tolerant of a real range of lighting and flow conditions, and it’ll steadily bud new heads over time, slowly turning one small frag into an actual colony.

In its natural range across the Indo-Pacific, it occupies a similar ecological niche to most medium-depth LPS: moderate lighting, moderate flow, stable parameters, and enough space to expand laterally without running into competition. Like most large polyp stony corals it carries a sting — mild by LPS standards but still enough to cause tissue recession in anything it grows against — so give it a few inches of clearance in every direction as the colony expands.

It’s photosynthetic and doesn’t require regular target feeding to survive, but occasional meaty food (frozen mysis, Reef Roids) placed near extended polyps will noticeably accelerate head budding and overall growth rate.

Scientific name: Caulastraea furcata
Origin: Indo-Pacific — shallow to mid-depth reef zones, often in moderate turbidity and variable flow
Water parameters: Temp 74–82°F · Salinity 1.023–1.026 · pH 8.1–8.4 · Alkalinity 8–11 dKH · Calcium 380–450 ppm
Tank requirements: 30 gal minimum; mid-tank placement with clearance from neighbors
Lighting: Low to moderate — forgiving across a wide PAR range (50–150 µmol)
Flow: Low to moderate indirect flow; direct high flow causes polyps to retract
Diet: Photosynthetic; benefits from weekly target-feeding to accelerate head budding
Husbandry note: New heads bud from between existing corallites — look for small white bumps between polyps as an early sign of colony expansion. This is the coral equivalent of a green light on your parameters.